Life Preservers

The Night of the Bat

August 21, 2020 at 4:42 pm 2 comments

Last night, my Dad was tucked up in bed, and I had just turned on the big in-the-ceiling fan, which is the last thing I do before getting into bed. The fan is one of those big metal ones that is built into the ceiling, to draw air in from outside. It is also made, I know now, to offer ingress to creepy critters that might be hanging around in the attic.

Just before getting into bed, I realized I had left my glass of water and my book down in the kitchen. So I plodded down the steps, without turning on any lights . . . because I am a grown woman . . . who sometimes has to prove to herself that she is not afraid of the dark any longer . . . because there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of, right?

I had turned left into the dining room when I flinched from some corner-of-the-eye flash and a feeling of movement near my head. “Trick of the light,” I thought. Then, “Was that a bird?” Then, “Oh please-please-please let it be a bird.”

It was a bat. And it was flapping all over the house. Swooping, circling, acting as if it were auditioning for a Halloween movie.

Full disclosure:  In a crisis, I am 90% level headed. But the other 10% is Lucille Ball.

In about 20 seconds, my whispered “Hey Dad” had increased repeatedly to a full blown, full volume “DAAA-AAAAD!!!!!!!!!”

(Is the story funnier if I mention Dad showing up in his “jammies,” which is actually tighty-whities and a T-shirt? Or is the humor of that detail less necessary than protecting him from the embarrassment of knowing I told a bunch of strangers on the internet to picture him in his underwear?)

After a bit of running about uselessly, dumbfounded staring, and me randomly opening and shutting doors, the bat stopped circling the living room and zoomed up the stairs, straight into my Dad’s bedroom. He yelled, “Shut the door!” which was a very good idea. So I ran up and shut his door.

Then I stood there. Outside the door of The Room With A Bat In It. I was really creeped out. I felt a crawly feeling on the back of my neck, and my stomach said, You can’t handle this. Then my head joined in with three thoughts:

1. Dad’s a manly man who has handled such things with ease all his life and he would handle this if I let him, but what kind of an asshole would I be if I let a 91-year-old guy with a relatively new heart valve handle this?
2. I could almost hear my Mom telling me not to be a sissy.
3. And I remembered an evening by the lake when I was teenager. I had stayed out a little too long and was by myself at the water end of the dock at dusk—when the bats came out to feed. There I was, alone, surrounded by flying beasts that (according to brotherly legend) often got stuck in girls’ long hair and probably had rabies. All I could think to do was not run and not panic. And so I sat, very still, like a freak show Snow White, with the bats swooping around me. Dozens of them. When I stopped being scared, it became fascinating. And it was beautiful. (Yes, beautiful.)

I foraged for weaponry, took a deep breath, and entered the room.

The bat was circling, swooping erratically, heading for me, veering away at the last second. I was at various points wielding an umbrella, a tennis racket, a bath towel, and for a short, hopeful while, I stood, like John Cusack, holding the empty clothes hamper aloft.

I managed to get the windows open, but, despite clear instructions and sincere encouragement, that damn bat would not fly out a window. Around and around we went, for half an hour, at least. Eventually, the bat appeared to be getting tired. And then, in a move that seemed like disaster but was actually good luck, it flew into the closet.

After all that heart-pounding, creepy, funny mayhem, there it was. Just a little bat, hanging on the wall at the end of the hanging rod. It looked tired. It looked tiny. (Maybe even cute.) And it looked terrified.

So. Right. I’m no sissy. I’m an independent woman who was once profoundly changed by witnessing the beauty of bats in flight at dusk. All I had to do was grab this tiny, helpless creature and let it out the window.

I took one step. I held up the towel. And I said, “Dad? Would you do it?”

And he did.

P.S. A friend of mine who deals with bats on a fairly regular basis at work says the best thing to do is shut off all the lights and then open doors and windows. The bat will go toward any light outside, where the bugs are.

Entry filed under: Humor - Commentary. Tags: bat in the house, bats, bats in the belfry, humor, mayhem, save the bat, year of the bat.