Sunday, July 22, 2012

May the Best Man Win

Dan fell asleep in Mac's room last night while putting the latter to bed. When I went up at 11, I found the little guy at the top of the stairs, 100% awake.

"Mac," I said, "you have to go back to bed."

"I CAN'T!" He told me, face smushed up, "DAD is ASLEEP in my BED!"

So, fine. It's a toddler bed. Not like there's really room for two.

Mac came to sleep with me in the big bed. I'm pretty sure I shut the door before we nodded off.

Later, when Dan wandered in at 4, I moved Mac to the middle and rolled over.

That's when all hell broke lose.

Dan made a sound and slammed the door. "There's a bat," he said.

Over the next 30 minutes, we peeked at it. Every time, we slammed the door after witnessing it flying down the hallway. We donned protective clothing and shoes. We argued about whether bat hunting is a suitable task for delicate females (that's right, friends, I'm not above evoking age-old stereotypes when flying rodents are on the scene). Finally, one of us stood watch while the other retrieved tennis rackets.

Then, Dan led the sneak attack down the hallway. I followed with my racket and my plastic shield (the top of a storage bin).

Friends! He got it on the first swing! We worked together to remove it, and he flung it victoriously in a construction dumpster outside!

All was well until this morning it occurred to me that we might die from rabies. Even though I've been exposed to bats millions of times, mind you, while working at Camp Foley. This particular time, I might die from rabies. I asked Facebook, and peeps told me it was indeed possible.

So, now we're waiting for the animal control guy to come over and pick up the bat and test it for rabies. If it's positive, we'll get shots or something.

Overall, I could have lived without this experience; however, we can all agree that Dan is incredibly brave and attractive. Dan is our masculine hero.

9 comments:

mm said...

Although I'm sure you are not going to die of rabies, I do want to know what animal control says. BTW- You obviously work well together.

LH said...

someone at my school put a coffee can over a bat once, and then brought it outside to live freely.
I'm assuming this wasn't an option here?

I'm glad you're all safe and sound and I'm hoping there's no rabies percolating inside your cells.

Kudos to Pronto, powerful protector of the homestead.

KC said...

No. We had to just whack the bat. It was the only way. I actually planned to just stun it, but we killed it. I'm not really sorry.

Jill said...

Our first bat occurred when John was away, and I was about 4 months pregnant. John laughed hysterically when I told him, the next day, about what I did upon fleeing the room: I turned on the computer and Googled what to do to catch and/or kill a bat. "Just like on the prairie in the old days," he remarked. A lot of help he was.

To be fair, he got the next two. The fourth one, I inadvertently decapitated after being woken up by a tick-tick-tick sound coming from the window. Without my glasses on, I put my face very close to the screen to discover the bat slowly inching down the inside of it. Slam! And it looked so pathetic in the daylight in the morning (we couldn't deal with cleaning it up that night). No rabies here either - I am sure you will be fine!

kc said...

Jill. Those stories are truly horrifying. Most horrifying is the fact that there are MULTIPLE stories.

Anonymous said...

Way to go Dan!! I thought you have to have been bitten to get rabbies??
mom

kc said...

NO! You can inhale a bat's spittle! And then you can get rabies. But, it turns out only 1% of bats have rabies. So, we're probably safe!

Jill said...

Have you heard back from the bat coroner yet?
Knock wood, no bats here in our Delaware house. But when we lived in NE Mpls in a 125-year old house, there were lots of critters. I have mice stories too... but jdoc already knows those.
Can't blame Mac for his bat nightmares!!

jdoc said...

Whoa. Jill. Terrible stories! Worse than the mice for sure. Did Mac sleep through this event? That's something, right?