2002-08-21 � And Me Without a Belfry

I'm tired because, really, I didn't sleep all that well. Misty, if you're keeping track, I only got about 4 hours and it was in fits and starts.

My mom, fresh from her magical week with grandma, came and stayed with me a few days. The stated purpose was to help me pack a bit, but we had some nice bonding time as well. We worked so very hard and now my place is practically boxed. Practically.

So with mission accomplished, we arranged for mom to leave this morning. We had to get up reasonably early to make the flight, so we turned in between 11 and 12 some time. Mom in the bed, me on the sofa, because that's just the way things are done.

I wasn't really tired, so I was clicking back and forth between Leno and Dave when I noticed that my cats were going crazy. Albert started hissing a bit and running in circles while Victoria watched on, her muscles coiled in readiness.

I assumed they had rediscovered the feather duster. I was wrong.

To my horror, a bat about the size of a softball from wingtip to wingtip emerged from the pile of boxes in the living room and flew figure eights between the living and dining rooms.

A bat.

As you may know, I've been confronted with these situations before. And as you may recall, I am calm and collected and generally zen at such times. So I start screaming because there is a bat in my apartment and although i don't know for sure, I'm relatively certain they carry disease.

I ran into the bedroom and turned on the light and started yelling at my mother, which is the way I roused her as a child after a bad dream. "MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! OH MY GOD, MOM! MOM! MOM!"

Now, mom, who sleeps with a mask because any light can rouse her, sits straight up in bed, an unfamilliar bed, and blindly swings her arms a bit to get her bearings which upends a lamp and the contents of the nightstand beside her. I'm still screaming at her.

"MOM! MOM! MOM! BAT! MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM! BAT! MOM! MOM!"

"Brian! What's wrong?" Mom's mask was now resting on her forehead and her eyes were still heavily lidded as she tried to restore the nightstand.

"There's a bat in my living room! What do I do?"

She set the alarm clock back on its feet and turned to observe me. She'd been on the receiving end of one too many practical jokes to take my hysterical ranting at face value. There was a long, pregnant, silent pause in which the only sound that could be heard was my labored breathing. Then, "a bat?" she asked calmly.

"UH-HUH! WITH WINGS AND TEETH AND LITTLE CLAWED FEET AND TEETH AND IT'S FLYING AROUND RIGHT NOW TRYING TO STAY ABOVE ALBERT!"

"Oh my God, is that for real?"

"YES! THERE'S A BAT IN THE LIVING ROOM! THERE'S A REAL BAT IN THE LIVING ROOM AND IT HAS TEETH!"

She looked at me like I'd lost my mind and started gesturing with her hands. "Well, for Heaven's sake, Brian! Shut the door! Don't let it in here. I bet they carry disease!"

"I KNOW! I BET THEY HAVE DISEASES TOO!"

"Who do you call when you have bats?"

"Well, mom, I don't know. I've never had a bat before."

"Well, who did you call when you had a squirrel?"

"Oh, good idea! I'll call Michael, the maintenence guy."

"Great. What's the number?"

"I don't know. I have it written down on a piece of paper under a magnet on the fridge."

"Oh."

We looked at each other for a minute and listened to the sounds of breaking things as the cats knocked stuff out of their way on their bat hunt.

"You know, Brian, when your dad and I were first married, he took a job as a night watchman in a hospital. They were building a new wing to the hospital so there was a construction area that was relatively open to the outside world. One night the nuns came to your dad and said, we have bats in the hospital so we need your help to get them out."

"How did they do it?" I asked.

"Your dad stood at one end of the hall around the corner and the nuns scared the bats down to your father and he jumped out and smacked it out of the air with a broom, but he had to come from the side because the bat had that sonar thing and could avoid the broom otherwise."

"Well, I don't really want to do that."

"Me neither."

"Ok, let me go get the phone number then."

So I get down on my hands and knees and ask my mother to open the door. "Shut it tightly behind me. We need a bat free zone." And I crawl down the hall looking up for flying disease carrying rodents. One of the cats is cleaning herself calmly in the center of the living room, so I scoop her up and run her back to the bedroom. I give the secret knock, mom opens the door, and I pass Victoria over the threshold.

I go back out looking for the other cat and when I come around the fridge I see him above my head, pressed into the space between the ceiling and the kitchen cabinets.

I take the phone number off the refrigerator and put it in my pocket. Then I carefully approach Albert and try to coax him down. I can't reach him, so I get a chair from the table and stand on it. I peek over the lip of the cabinets and see only my cat, so I grab him, something he was very upset about, and run for the bedroom.

Within about five minutes, Michael was at the door with heavy gloves and a butterfly net. "We do this too often, you and I," he said with a wink.

I introduced him to mom and noticing the net, she asked if this was a common problem. He said this was his third or fourth bat call in the 18 months or so he'd been around. Mom said, "oh." Then she excused herself and went back to the bedroom with the kitties.

So for the next thirty minutes, Michael and I looked for the thing. We looked in every nook and cranny and it was no where to be found. We were both very tired as by this point it was well past 1 A.M.

Michael says, "OK, B. Here's what we'll do. I'll leave the net and the gloves and if you see it again take a swing at it and call me and I'll come back."

"Fine," I say. And he leaves.

Mom was a little disappointed with this outcome. "Well, did you look behind that? I know you looked everywhere, but I have to ask for my own piece of mind. Just thinking about it makes me itch."

I calmed her a bit and we decided we'd try and sleep. We had Victoria and Albert and I knew they'd wake us inadvertently if it reappeared so we went off to bed.

About an hour later I was awakened to my mother screaming from the bedroom. "BRIAN! BRIAN! BRING THE NET! BRIAN! OH MY GOD! BRING THE NET!"

I ran into the bedroom and saw my mother's wide eyes and white knuckles peeking out from below the sheet. The bat was circling her and the cats were running back and forth across her torso trying to nab the beastie. I screamed.

She pulled the sheet down far enough to expose her mouth. "I SAID BRING THE NET! GO GET IT! GET THE NET!" Then she snapped the sheet back over her nose so only her eyes remained visible. There was a clear message in those eyes.

I retrieved it hastily and ducked into the closet. "Try and scare it over this way." I demanded.

She reached under her head and grabbed one of the pillows by the end. She swung at the bat and almost knocked it to the ground. It headed back for the door. "Here it comes!" she said.

When I saw it fly by, I swung with the net. I swung hard. It must have caught sight of the thing becase the bat made a last minute course correction which caused the metal rim around the net to come into contact with creature instead of the meshy part.

I heard it's skull crack. I dropped the sucker. I've never killed a bat before. It was surprisingly easy.

I put the bat carcas in an old coffee can and threw it away. Mom and I had a cocktail to calm our nerves.

"You know, they carry disease," she said.

"Yeah. Filthy rodent." I agreed. "Filthy diesase infested rodent."

We got about 2 more hours of sleep before it was time to take mom to the airport. I hugged her at the curb and wished her a safe trip.

She left me with this. "Brian, how did that disease carrying thing get in anyway?"

Oh, dear reader. I don't know.

Posted at 8:40 a.m.

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