Bat Attack

As promised, here you go:

Every year we get at least one bat in our house.  It's just part of having an older home.  I know that bats will not hurt people.  However, that logic completely escapes me when I am in a room with one of those fanged and flying creatures.  I panic.  I don't mind seeing one outside, but in my house, well, that's another story.

One day last week, I woke up around 3 in the morning.  As I opened my eyes, I was positive that I saw a bat fly out of my bedroom and into the hall.  I laid there, with the covers pulled up to my chin, waiting for it to return.  I heard clicking in the hall, but never saw the bat again.  I wasn't about to go and search for it.  In the morning, I told Greg that I thought there was a bat in the house.  He insisted that it was too early in the season for bats, and that I was probably dreaming.  That night Greg came to me and said, "You were right.  There's a bat."  He calmly got the net, capture the thing and released it without any scuffle.  Whew.  Bat problem solved. 

Or so I thought.

The next night, again around 3 in the morning, I was awakened by that tell-tale flap, flap, flapping sound of a bat in our bedroom.  I pulled the covers up to my chin and looked around the room.  Nothing.  I laid very still and waited and then suddenly - whoosh! - it swooped down within an inch of my face!  I screamed!  Greg jumped up!  "What's the matter?"  he said.

"There's a bat in the room!  It just swooped over my face."  I said as I trembled under the covers. 

"Get under the covers," he said flatly, as he rubbed his face.  "I'll get the net."

"Like hell am I staying in this room with a bat!"  I said.  "I'll get the net."  I scurried out of the bedroom and pulled the door shut behind me.  When I returned with the net and opened the bedroom door, the darn bat flew past me into the hall!  Greg followed it into the hall and pulled the bedroom door shut.  I listened to him fumble around in the hallway for a while, and then I went back to sleep.  The next morning he told me that he was unable to locate it.  It was still at large.  Oh goodie.

All that day I searched for the bat.  If I could find it sleeping, I would be OK.  We could remove the bat without a scene.  I looked behind the curtains and behind all the picture frames, in every little nook and cranny I could find.  No bat anywhere. We would have to wait for it to rear it's ugly little head.

As the sun set that night, I very cautiously moved from room to room, hoping to at least come across it before we went to sleep.  9 p.m. rolled around and still no bat.  It was time for Andrew to go to bed, so the two of us headed upstairs.  As we were sitting on his floor reading his bedtime story, the bat took flight, swooping all around us!  I screamed, and Andrew yelled, "What is that?" 

I tried to scramble us out of the room as quickly as possible without standing up.  I tried to urge Andrew along in a crawling motion, but he just wasn't moving fast enough.  I wanted to trap the bat in his room, but I also didn't want it to get caught in my hair.  I was in 100%  panic mode.  I grabbed Andrew by the waist and literally threw him out of the bedroom in to the hallway head first.  I was trying to keep my body over his, and what happened next was totally foreseeable.  He landed on his forehead on the hardwood hallway floor, and I landed on my knee, hovering just above him.  Luckily, my body did not fall on him.  I slammed the door shut, scooped him up and ran down the steps to the first floor.  Andrew and I yelled at Greg, and my brother-in-law, Rob who were chatting in the game room.  Rob and Greg apprehended the bat, while Andrew and I regained our composure on the couch.  It was then that I looked at Andrew's head, and the very large and purple goose-egg that was forming. 

I felt terrible.  He was trembling, and I tried to just  rub his back and reassure him.  He calmed down, but his head bore witness to the panic that had just ensued.  My knee began to throb too.  I looked at it and saw a bruise twice the size of the one on Andrew's head. Ouch.  I limped the rest of the night.  Greg thought it was absolutely ridiculous to have such a reaction to a bat.  He's probably right, but like I said, logic is the farthest from my mind when a bat is flying around my head.  I went into survival mode.  I just wanted to protect myself and my son from a vicious creature!

The next day, Greg asked Andrew what happened to his head, and Andrew said, "Well, my mom just throwed me out my room."  Oh great.  Without explanation, that doesn't sound so good.  Of course, when I picked him up from pre school last week, he said to me on the way out the door, "Mom, I telled Miss Sara that you just throwed me out my room."  Even better!  Tell the school!  I explained it to them, and all is good.  In retrospect, we had a good laugh.  And thankfully, Greg found the place where the bats were coming in, so (knock on wood) we haven't had any more.  I hope that completes our quota for the season!