Tuesday, January 04, 2011

A Tale of Terror

Holy Moses, what excitement at our house last night!!!!!

After a day of celebrating the anniversary of our first date, we came home and collapsed.  We had eaten a big lunch out, so we weren't very hungry at our usual supper time.  Hubby hit his recliner, and the fuzzy one and I took the couch.  The television was turned to Mute, and we were doing our daily bit on our laptops.  It was about 9 o'clock when I let out the first scream!

Some thing was flying from the living room into the den, tried to dive bomb me, and then flew back out of the room.  The thing was black.  It wasn't a bird.  It was a frickin' BAT.

Thank heaven the hubby was home.  He bounded out of that recliner, went to the kitchen for a towel, and all hell broke loose.  He was swatting the towel and bravely trying to follow the flight pattern of the crazed creature.  I, of course, was thinking maybe the weaponry was a tad on the frail side, but he assured me death was close at hand.  All I could do was put a pillow over my head, while the terrified fuzzy one frantically barked at the frenzied state of our otherwise calm family household. 

After a few futile swattings, finally the bat met its untimely demise and hit the floor behind the rocker in the living room.  My hero carefully removed the corpse from the house, and a state of normalcy sort of returned.  My first question was:  where the hell did it come from?  It's January, for god sake.  We figure the bat snuck in the house while we were fumbling around with our packages when we came in the front door after dark. 

I'm not bat-phobic, but they carry a nasty stigma.....all I could think of was the bat getting tangled up in my hair or the bat attacking the fuzzy one.  Only one person remained in complete control of the situation.  I asked myself what I'd have done if I was home alone with this thing.  My plan of attack would have been total retreat to the upstairs bedroom, locking the door, and staying there until the rescue squad would arrive.

After such an experience, a person can't help but keep a wary eye out for those clever little entry artists.  Only one other time did we have a bat in our house, and that was when our nieces were little girls.  We were having a picnic on the back patio when one of them came out of the house screaming her head off, "There's a bat in your house!"  That time a tennis racket was the weapon that saved all of our lives.  The same little niece came up to me later and said, "Auntie, your house is just like Creature Feature!"

Guess it still is.