...Batwoman

So I have been doing laundry a lot because I have a lot to do and because we are going home this weekend and I need to pack everyone up.  Well, in one of the trips in and out of the laundry room I closed the door which squeaks, but this time it didn't stop squeaking.  I opened the door and watched a bat drop to the ground.

Oh my goodness, I didn't sign up for bat killing duty.  So, brave me, I run to Tim's 82yr old granddad to tell him about it.  He goes and gets his gloves and then we open the door to get the injured night bird and wouldn't you know it?  He's not there.  Granddad wanted to know why I didn't get him right away to which I had to humbly explain that it was because I was caught off guard and basically scared of it.  Sheesh.  Naturally I couldn't find the little bugger anywhere, which creeped me out, so I decided to wait until tomorrow to figure it out as I still had dinner dishes to do now that the kids were in bed.

As I am doing the dishes, I notice something flopping around on the kitchen floor, on the opposite side of the kitchen from the laundry room and for whatever reason, it took me a few seconds of looking at it to realize it was a bat.  An injured bat.  Doggoneit.  I just heard the bat I injured flopping and scraping the laundry room door.  Now I have TWO bats?  This time I thought quickly and grabbed a kitchen towel ant threw it on top of the bat.  Yeah, that's gonna do it, Einstein.

It didn't take the flightless bird long to limp its way to the edge of that blue towel, all the while screeching, so I went ahead and threw another towel on him as I pondered what to do.  I was still gloved but there was NO way I was going to grab that rodent with my bare hands like that (yes, rubber gloves vs bat = bare hands to me) so I poked the towel to find out where the bat was, exactly.  It was rather cool because I could feel his heart racing or he was just electrically charged.  Either way, he was vibrating so I knew where he was.  I scooped up the bat very carefully, folded it up so the critter wouldn't escape and carried him outside where I opened the towel, kindly dropped the little fella to the ground to watch him wing hobble away.  He would be scooped up by some predator very soon in his condition.

One down.  One to go.  I wanted to be brave and take care of the creepy beast on my own, so I put on a hat in case he wanted to swoop down and nest in my hair (I think its my uncle Jeff's hat actually) and I already had my gloves on and I got prepared to "go in."

He's in there...

Here I am, all geared up in a TANK TOP and FLIP FLOPS (what am I?  Nuts?) getting ready to go one on one with a mini monster.  Well, I meant business.  So much so that I stormed over to that door...and stood outside for at least 10 minutes praying up the courage to face this thing.  HAHA!!!  It was pathetic.

Then I thought, as I was hitting the door to scare him off that bats are deaf, so that won't make a difference.  Then I was going through what all I could remember about bats (is this adult ADD or what?) as if any of it was going to make a difference to me.  I remembered something about listening by sonar because they aren't deaf.  They are blind!  Yes, that's it.  Hello, "blind as a bat."  OK, that gave me a bit of courage.  Now I had the confidence (of a kid on his first day in a new school) that he couldn't see me right away to swoop down and attack me.  Just God-given sonar. So much better.  Ugh.

Finally I opened the door slowly, giving ample time for this nocturnal nightmare to fly out and roam around the house.  Dork.  Once I got in, I closed the door and dagnabbit, I couldn't find the dumb bat.  I looked in the laundry.  I looked on the floor.  I looked behind and under and in everything I could physically reach and there wasn't any living creatures besides this herkin' huge carpenter ant and the moths running into the window screens over and over again.

Now I am mad because I went in all brave to do this noble task and there was nothing for me to conquer.  Truth be told, this is how I really went in.

Now I am gonna have to chance facing it today.  I suppose I don't NEED to go in that laundry room, but I am guessing that in the time I am gone, this critter will either curl up and die SOMEWHERE in there and then start to become quite an odor, or granddad will accidentally let it out and then I have to consider myself and my family as bat prey.  Neither sounds acceptable.  In the meantime I am going to shower and consider my options before risking life and limb for my family.  It's a dangerous job, but someones gotta do it!