A bat. A BAT!

My husband said that I screamed "bloody murder" last night. I don't remember that.

He also said that I yelled "THERE'S A BAT IN THE HOUSE!!!" I don't remember that either.

I do remember my husband saying "It's only a bat." Only a bat?


We were both in the TV room. My husband was reading a computer book; I was reading a book about Anne Boleyn. I kept hearing Mickey and ShadowBaby and Sweet Pea running up and down the stairs. Gatsby was sleeping right next to me, Gracie was sleeping on the floor near my husband's chair. I called out for the cats to quit running. I heard Mickey jump on top of something-- his little bell always makes a different sound when he jumps. Then I heard Sweet Pea jumping... ditto for his little bell.

I put my book down and walked towards the direction of their bells. No sooner had I gotten into the dining room, and ShadowBaby is running at break-neck speed with his head facing towards the ceiling. I was just about to tell him that he was going to smash into a wall if he didn't watch where he was going, and out of the corner of my eye I saw something up near the ceiling. I switched on the overhead light and there was no mistaking what it was-- a bat. A bat! In the house!

I guess that's when I screamed "bloody murder," as my husband described it. The bat flew out of the dining room and into the breakfast room, with ShadowBaby, Mickey, and Sweet Pea trying to capture it. Look! A new toy! And it can fly!!!!

I remember calling for my husband, who came running out of the TV room, and I remember gathering up the cats one by one and literally tossing them into the TV room and shutting the door after I got each one in there. Gracie was still curled up by my husband's chair, Gatsby was still sleeping on the sofa. As I was getting the bat-chasing cats into the TV room, my husband was following the bat and I heard him go up the stairs. Upstairs? The bat flew upstairs?

My husband called out to me that he had the bat cornered in one room (my dressing room) and he shut both doors to that room so the bat couldn't get out. He told me that he needed a plastic bowl to put the bat in, and then he would carry the bat out to the balcony and release him. I think I asked him at that point if he wouldn't rather have a broom so he could smash the bat. Now that I'm settled down and calm, smashing the bat would have been a mess... bat-blood all over my embroidered silk curtains with the beaded fringe.

I gave my husband a red mixing bowl and a cookie-rack to cover the bowl. Looking back on those choices, the bat could have easily crawled through the openings on the cookie-rack, and did I have to give my husband one of my Williams-Sonoma bowls?

I don't know what possessed me to stand in the upstairs hallway instead of going back downstairs to lock myself in the TV room with Gracie and the cats, but I think I was just too stunned to even move. There was a bat in the house. There was a bat in the house! And my husband was in the dressing room, talking to the bat, using his best Steve Irwin imitation-- "Oh crikey! She's a beaut!"

The door to the balcony opened, then closed. Then opened and closed again. My husband opened the door to the hallway and told me that the bat was on the balcony in the red bowl, and he would soon fly off. We both went to look. The bat was still in the red bowl, just hanging on the inside, one wing folded over the side of the bowl. Should I call Williams-Sonoma and tell them about yet another use for their rubber-bottomed mixing bowls?

Nothing was really disturbed in my dressing room, except one of the beaded silk curtain tie-backs was off and the curtain itself was a bit crooked. My husband said the bat had hidden himself behind the curtain and had to be coaxed down the silk and into the bowl.

"It was only a bat," my husband repeated. By the sound of my screams (I swear I don't remember) he said he thought I had either discovered one of the cats dead on the floor or I had cut off my arm with a kitchen knife.

"The bat's agenda was to just get out of the house," my husband said. "No big deal... I just helped him to get out." (Well, isn't it nice that one of us in this house can keep their wits about them when all hell is breaking lose and half the wildlife of Washington County is flying around this house?)

Of course, now we're wondering how the bat got in here. We're thinking it could have found its way into the attic. And about an hour before the bat-incident, both Mickey and Sweet Pea were sitting by the door to the attic, trying to get their paws underneath the door. Could they have heard the bat up there? And could the bat have discovered the tiny opening underneath that door? That opening is now stuffed up with tissue paper, my husband went up into the attic with a flashlight (no more bats that he can see) and I told him that we are getting that attic sealed to within an inch of its bat-welcoming life.

"Calm down," said my husband... "It was only a bat."