I have a lovely pool with a lovely view of the western horizon. But can I enjoy a sunset out there? Noooo. Because BATS.
The sun starts to dip and the bats start to swoop over the water . . . and I start to freak the freak out. I drip with an anxiety usually reserved for choosing between watching the Kardashians and poking a kitten in the eye.
I know bats eat mosquitoes, blah, circle of life, blah, environmental ecosystems, blah, blah, blah. I worked at an environmental marine lab for five summers. I‘m all for letting nature do its thing. I used to have a copacetic relationship with all of the stars of Halloween nightmares: rats, black cats, mice, spiders, snakes, and even bats.
But that all changed when the bats decided my ecosystem looked a little more inviting than the great outdoors. You know what I hate more than a mosquito bite while I’m sitting outside? A bat inside my house.
My journey to hell began one night at 2:08 am, when my eldest daughter came to my bedside. She was in kindergarten at the time, so from the vantage point of my pillow I could just see her eyes peeking over the edge of my high pencil post bed.
She tapped me and calmly reported, “There is a bat in my room.”
My foggy brain said, “Does not compute.”
I translated for my brain saying, “Do you feel sick?”
She said, “No, but there is a bat doing a jig at the end of my bed.”
My brain chortled, “Your precious dumpling has quite the imagination. Plus, look at her using her vocabulary words at the crack ass middle of the night.”
No one works “jig” into sentences quite as much as a kindergarten curriculum.
Regardless, I was going to have to walk her back to bed.
It was only with the mildest of trepidation that I opened her door and flipped on the light . . .
“Holy @&%$#@&*#^#@#! There’s a bat!!!!
Scream. Slam. Scream some more.
Luckily, the linen closet is right by her room. I started shoving towels under her door like I was a beaver building a dam . . . a dam against monsters attacking my babies.
Needless to say I startled my husband and my three year old daughter awake–then the hysteria really kicked up a notch. Well, to be more accurate, my husband joined me in my hysteria. The girls were dancing around like it was the best night ever. Ah, blessed innocence . . . because for crying out loud there was a bat. IN. MY.HOUSE.
The rest of the night unfolded like a strobe lit horror movie.
Husband: “I’m going to get that bat!”
Me: “Really?1 Doesn’t really seem like your skill set.”
Husband: “Of course it is! ::indignant pause:: Um, what should I use to catch a bat?”
Me: “Just figure it out. I’m getting the girls into our bed.”
Yeah, because if 80s horror films taught me anything, the bed is sooooo the safest place to be. I’d be ashamed except I tucked the covers in extra tight around them (completely proven to protect against all evil: Mothering Handbook pg. 735, section 99). But for good measure, I unloaded the other half of the linen closet to seal off the crack under my bedroom door.
Oh, and I also sealed my husband OUTSIDE of our bedroom.
::Knock, knock, knock::
Husband: “Let me in.”
Me: “Good try, Mr. Bat. I’m not that easily fooled.”
Husband: “I need you to open the door.”
Once again, going against every ounce of my Freddy Krueger tutelage, I opened the door to see my husband standing there in a full ski ensemble: goggles, hat, scarf, gloves, jacket, snow pants . . . and a crab net. It was May.
He needed my help because ski gloves and doorknobs don’t mix. So I opened my daughter’s bedroom door to let him dash in, slamming it so hard behind him that the whole house shook. I didn’t even get my hand off of the knob before he yanked the door open again and dashed out. Somehow he managed that with ski gloves on.
Husband: “I can’t do it! I caught it in the net and it SQUEEZED OUT ONE OF THE HOLES!”
Me: “Gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So we hunkered down with the girls in our bed, waiting out the few minutes until dawn broke.
At 8:00 am, I started frantically dialing the exterminator. Somehow, from my hysterical gobbledygook and more than likely with the help of Caller ID, they had a technician at my house by 8:30 am. He walked right into my daughter’s bedroom protected only by a short-sleeved shirt and khakis and emerged two minutes later with a bat stuck to a glue trap.
Technician: “It was easy to find under the pillow.”
I’ll wait now as you scream in disgust and horror. Go ahead, let it all out. It does no good to keep these things bottled up inside.
As I’m setting fire to her bedding in the driveway, he informs me that the “bat specialist” will be there by 1 pm because when he accessed the attic through my daughter’s closet, he counted at least fifteen bats.
And then I set a match to my house.
Just kidding. I gathered up my youngest, picked up my oldest from kindergarten and hunkered down at the McDonald’s PlayPlace until the appointment time. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
My hero arrived on time at my house, promptly shed his shirt, tied a bandana around his forehead and climbed up on the roof of my two-story home. Apparently, my house was missing a piece of trim where the bricks meet the roof, leaving a two inch gap perfect for bats.
He hung his half-naked self precariously over the edge of the roof and sprayed something in that gap. Bat after bat came tearing out of my house—like bats out of hell (heh,heh)—until they plummeted to the earth twenty-five feet out.
Bats are mammals. Humans are mammals. I’m thinking my hero should have been wearing some protective gear for that fresh toxic hell he was spraying.
The bats were gathered and bagged (eventually testing negative for rabies) and the gaps were filled. Even though we have been bat-free for over a decade, my aversion to bats remains, nay, it grows stronger. I HATE bats. I don’t like them outside, in the zoo, on TV, and even Batman is not my favorite.
So I ask you, is it an unreasonable phobia or a justified loathing?
–Ellen
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