Bat Man Part II

Some of you may remember a post back in August where I discussed an incident with a bat in our house.  It was an awful nasty thing, but I thought it was a fluke.  Not so.  Let me give you the latest:

Last week was spring break.  I worked on Monday and Tuesday and went to down to Grey Rocks with the kids on Wednesday.  Ted stayed behind to work the rest of the week and was planning on meeting us on Friday.  I left a short "honey-do" list for him and one of the items necessitated him going up in the attic.  Later that night while deep in sleep Ted heard the curtains in our room rustling.  He thought it was our cat playing in the curtains and shushed her, but then realized that she was not even in the room.  Next thing he knew a bat flew out of the curtains and toward the hall.  Ted, in his slumber, reacted by shutting the door to our room, allowing the bat free reign of the house, and going back to sleep.  (Of course if I had been there, there would have been no sleeping until the bat was either dead or out of the house).  But Ted thinks to himself that he will just deal with the bat in the morning.

Fast forward 5 hours.  Ted is showered and ready for work on Friday morning.  He remembers the bat, goes and gets gloves and a tennis racquet (that is how he killed the bat last time).  And the hunt begins.  And 45 minutes pass and he can't find the bat.  What's a guy to do?  Continue the hunt?  Oh no, Ted decides to lock up the house, turn on the alarm, and head to work - and after work come on to Grey Rocks and LEAVE THE BAT IN THE HOUSE FOR THE WEEKEND.  He called to check in and told me about the bat and I insisted that he go home and not come to Grey Rocks until the bat was taken care of.  So like a good husband, he goes home at lunch.  Searches again and still can't find that bat.  So now he is pretty desparate and we both don't know what to do.  He locks up the house and calls Jason, his nephew, to come and search for the bat on Saturday.  He searched for over two hours to no avail.  Sneaky little sucker, huh?

Now we are all at Grey Rocks having a great time and I have pretty much forgotten about the bat.  I called our exterminater and you have to be licensed to deal with bats so he refers me to a wildlife guy.  I left him a message and don't really think about it until I am driving home with the kids and realize that I am going to be the first one in the house (Ted is behind me) and what am I going to do if I see that bat?  We get home and we still can't find the bat.  I talk to the wildlife guy who tells me all sort of scary stuff about bats - like they have such small teeth that they can bite you at night and you would never know it; they can squeeze under doors and through anything the size of a penny; if he were me, he would not sleep in the house until the bat is gone, etc.  All I can picture is my kids being attacked my rabies-filled bats all night.  So I pack them up and head to my parent's house.

I then remember that it has been spring break and we have no food in our house and nothing to make lunches for the kids for school so I gotta head to the grocery store.  Ted decides to take the kids with him to go wash his car (a favorite outing) so I can enjoy my grocery shopping alone.  I get back home with all the groceries and start putting them up.  I decide that I need a little music so on goes Lady Gaga. And I put it on LOUD.  I am dancing and singing to my heart's desire and putting yogurt into the refridgerator and then I look up.  And staring down at my from the crown moulding are two beaty bat eyes and he looks like he is about to pounce.  I guess I woke a nocturnal animal with my music.

To say that I freaked out would be the understatement of the century.  I started screaming, loud.  And panting.  And sweating.  I think that I had wet armpits immediately.  I grab the phone and run out to the garage so I can still see the bat from the window on the door, but it can't get to me.  I call Ted.  And continue to freak out.  And shreek.  And sweat.  And maybe wet my pants a little bit.  Ted, of course, thinks that my freak out is a bit funny and puts me on speakerphone with the kids.  Not so funny. 

After what seems like an eternity, Ted gets home.  He puts on the gloves, grabs the tennis racquet and asks me to throw him a towel.  He throws the towel over the bat who starts hissing and trying to get away.  He scoops the bat up with the tennis racquet and goes outside.  The wildlife guy tells us that we need to keep the bat and have it tested so that means we gotta kill it.  Ted pulls the towel out and places the racquet on top of the hissing and spitting bat.  He is looking for something to hit it with when Ward runs up to the bat with his plastic golf club and takes a few whacks at the bat.**  He stops.  Ted then puts him in a cool whip container and although he flapped around a bit, he finally died.  Whew.

So now I am waiting on the wildlife guy (or bat man as we are calling him at our house) to come out and check the attic.  He said that we probably have bats living up there.  Nice.  But he told me that the good news is that the babies aren't born until June or July so I don't have to worry about that.  Great.  Makes it so much better. 

I'll update later once we find out what we are dealing with.  Fun birthday, huh?

** By the way, I am a bit disturbed at Ward whacking the bat with the golf club.  I mean, he actually seemed to like it.  Maybe I should have a little talk with him about not hurting animals.