My Husband, the Ninja

I ran across one of my old diaries, entitled The Ramona Quimby Diary, the other day. The Ramona Quimby Diary, named for the popular children's book series by Beverly Cleary, provided prompts for budding child writers such as "My best friend is ______ because _______ ."

I found one of my responses to the July 5, 1985 prompts particularly interesting. It read "The person I like best in my class is" - Jacob Cohen - "because" - he is quiet.

Even at age eight, I knew what I wanted in a guy.

As I entered the dating world, my family evaluated my boyfriends according to how much they talked. Of course, I was not aware of this until my dad said, after I had been married a couple of years, "I never liked that one boy you dated in college. He talked too much. You would have never lasted with a guy like that."

That was my dad's way of saying I needed someone who could stay quiet and listen for enormously long periods of time while I chattered incessantly about some book or movie or song or opera or feminist topic.

And I found just that in my husband, Dan the Ninja.

When my parents first met Dan, they raved about his great listening skills and his quiet, calm personality.

But then we started to realize that, occasionally, Dan would just disappear into thin air. We would be sitting in a restaurant or at a baseball game or some other social outing, when I'd notice the empty seat next to me.

"Where's Dan?" I would ask.

"I don't know. Did you see him leave?" my mom would say.

"No. Did you?" I would ask my dad or my brother.

And they would say, "No. Where did he go?" or "I didn't hear anything. He's really quiet."

This conversation would continue for about five more minutes or until Dan returned, whichever came first.

After several instances of misplacing my husband in restaurants and at various social events, I asked him how he was able to slip away, unbeknownst to any of our friends, family members, or me.

"Because . . . I'm like a Ninja!" was his reply, as he made little ninja gestures with his hands.

"Oh. That's nice," I was so glad I had asked.

A few weeks ago, Dan and I attended the Weiser Fiddle Festival with a couple from our church. As we stood in the will-call line, our friends suddenly asked, "Where's Dan?"

I looked toward the empty spot next to me in line.

"He disappears all the time," I explained. "He thinks he's a ninja."

"Oh. That's nice," they said.

So, if you're dating one of those quiet, mysterious types, watch out. You could end up with a ninja on your hands.