About an hour or so ago I was woken from a dead sleep by what sounded like a motor or some such mechanical device dying. A ridiculous racket. I thought our air conditioner was crapping out, but the Wife got up to investigate, suspecting a mouse, then screeched me to full alertness with the shrill announcement that, "the cat has a BAT!"
Ok. I hate that I am the bug catcher, which has on occasion turned into mouse catcher, but this, THIS, is out of my league! I don't know the first thing about bats! Ok, well, except that their bites - which one cannot necessarily detect - are known to cause a disease that is 100% fatal if contracted and not dealt with. But how do you catch one? What kind of armor do you need? Is there anything you shouldn't do (aside from screech like a little girl and wake up the baby??)? What do you do with the bat if you do catch it? My mind is racing with all of these questions as I am trying to decide what action to take. I feel stripped naked in my measly jammies hopping around after that cat with a squealing, flapping creature in its jaws, which then escapes and I shriek, put the bucket on top of my head and flee the room as the thing is being completely unpredictable. And it flew. Before it just flapped around. But it was flying as I fled the room. While this is happening the wife is spouting out fun facts about how we have to catch it and turn it over to the authorities to get it tested, that you must wear leather gloves, that if it's on the floor you put a towel over it it can't fly - and other things -
But we got it!! Just now! Oh my God that was BAT-CRAZY-MAD! We were holding vigil for over an hour and just when we were about to decide to all just go get rabies shots, because we probably weren't bitten, but it we were then it's fatal, the Wife said, did you check that pile of clothes, and well, I batted at it quite a bit but no bat came out, so I thought it was clear, but we decided to take the whole pile down to be sure, and that's when the bat flew out and LANDED ON THE WIFE!! Right on her NECK! I don't think I've ever heard her scream so loud before! She flung the thing off and ran up the stairs, still screaming!! And then the Boy is screaming, too, because I don't think he's ever heard either of us scream like that, much less waking him from a sound sleep. Thank the Goddess she probably stunned the thing because I finally got it in the container. And the wife was still making little hyperventilating noises when she finally came back down with assurances that the bat was closed up tight. She is now looking up where to take the thing in the morning for testing. And at Google Image for examples of bat bites. It doesn't look like she's got one, but she is scratched up - though most of the scratches likely came from her own flailings, but at least we can get it tested.
And now, somehow, I am supposed to go to sleep and then wake up in 3 1/2 hours to ready myself for facilitating a 4-hour meeting... but oh, we have to figure out how to "euthanize" the bat before we submit it for testing. So now I have to kill the dreadful little thing too. Good Grief.
No comments:
Post a Comment