Das Bat

Part I:

We live in a relatively rural area. It's not that far from the rest of town but remote feeling nonetheless. Our neighborhood is heavily treed and all sorts of small wildlife inhabit the area: squirrels, chipmunks, geese, swans (amorous swans it appears), various annoyingly squawking birds and the occasional muskrat. A while back we discovered that the area is also home to another type of animal, the bat.

We came home from work one day, after stopping off at the grocery store. We released the dog from his kennel and proceeded downstairs, loaded down with grocery bags to avoid making multiple trips up and down the stairs with them. (The house is small, but split into two levels with the kitchen downstairs...You know what, I'm not going to draw you a blueprint, just use your imagination.) MK was a few steps behind me as I came into the kitchen area, the dog trotting along side of me, head in a bag trying to determine what we brought him. Suddenly, I see something moving and hear a strange sound, much like a bird flapping its wing and coming straight at me. I have no time to form any rational thoughts, so I duck and drop almost completely down to the floor, as a grayish blur dive-bombs my head. At this point, I began to regain my thought process and a few thoughts came into my mind in rapid succession: "I feel like an idiot down here." "I hope I didn't have the bag with the eggs." "There's a bat in my house." "There's a bat in my house, and my dog wants to eat it." "That would solve the bat in the house problem." "That would make a terrible mess, and I don't want to clean that out of the carpet." "Grab dog!"

Leaving the bags of groceries lying strewn about the floor, I grabbed the dog by his collar just as figured out that this swooping, flying thing might just be a tasty McNugget with wings. He tried to pull away, but I was able to keep him by my side. At this point, the bat decided that while he may be annoyed that we disturbed his nap, the downstairs area with two people and a dog was probably not where he wanted to be. He flew upstairs, past MK, who was now pulling herself up off the ground as well. "Well," I thought, "at least I'm not the only one looking foolish down here on the floor."

"Keep the dog down here," she said, "I'll go take care of the bat." Since I was downstairs trying to console a dog who was desperate to find out what that flying treat was, I was unable to witness the capturing of the bat. All I know is that the catch and release program took about twenty minutes and involved the use of a cardboard box. The offending animal was released into the wild (i.e. out the front door), never to be seen or heard from again...

Part II:

Fast forward a year or so from that point to last night. As the time for bed approached MK heard a sound. A sound of tiny claws and then flapping wings. "Stay in there with the dog." Unfortunately, I had the door to the room shut, so I heard only muffled words. I opened the door and asked what she said. "Shut the door! Don't let the dog out! There's a bat out here!" I slammed the door in the dog's face, just as he finally got up the energy to get up, stretch and walk over to the door to see what was going on. As MK went on a quest for the appropriate bat hunting paraphernalia, the confused thing began circling the living room to find its way back outside. When she returned, the bat was nowhere to be found. She searched the living room, the downstairs. No bat. Perhaps it had managed to get back out after all. She gave up for the evening, and we went to sleep.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I looked at the ceiling and there on one of the beams, pretending to be a knot hole or a greatly oversized moth was the resting bat. I told MK that I found it and was getting ready to try to deal with it when she said, "Keep the dog in here. I'll go open the front door." Puzzled, I replied, "I can do it. I don't mind. Are you sure?" "No, stay with the dog. I'll go do it." As she went into the living room and began poking the bat with a stick, I sat down near the dog who no longer even cared about all of this; sleep was much more interesting.

After rousing the bat with a thorough stick-poking, MK proceeded to chase the bat around and try to catch him. Managing at one point to take the time to assemble a flattened cardboard box in order to catch it as it dive-bombed her. The bat went into the box, hit the bottom and proceeded to bounce right back out, momentarily dazed, onto the floor.

While this was happening, I was still locked in a room with the dog. He looked up at me with one eye, as dog's often do, and I could tell he was saying to me, "Good. Way to be the man. Send the woman out to deal with the rabid bat while you hang out in safety with me." I attempted to rationalize with him, explaining that it was her decision, not mine. I stopped once I realized that he was a dog, I was trying to rationalize it to myself.

The dazed bat got back up off the floor and, tired of all of this strange box game, let himself out through the open front door. MK came back into the room. "It's gone. I got rid of it." Trying to maintain some dignity, I started again, "You know I could have done that or at least helped you. I didn't want you to have to deal with the nasty thing on your own." She smiled, "It wasn't nasty. It was so cute. You're lucky I didn't decide to keep it. You should have seen its little dog-face when I was poking it with the stick."

Then I finally realized that I didn't have to rationalize anything. It wasn't me she was trying to protect. It was the bat. To me they were nasty and I certainly didn't invite them into my house. Since I didn't invite them into the house, I certainly had no intention of playing the proper host. It wasn't the same to her. She liked them. They were cute and confused and scared. Ever the gracious hostess, she wanted to ensure that even the unwanted company, though being rushed out the door, was not traumatized by the experience.

Until later...