Recently, we came home from our choir practice and noticed the cat wasn’t at the door begging to be fed, as usual. We walked in and called and called him and finally he showed up. I was in the kitchen and my wife Bonnie started shrieking – we got a bat in the house!
The bat was flying around and around in our dining room — I am sure it had a four foot wing span and had yellow eyes. It had YELLOW EYES!!!
So what to do?
Miss Bonnie said, “Let’s try to herd him out of the house!” So we closed off the doors to the dining room and got in position – actually I got in position, she disappeared.
Armed with the throw off the chair I attempted to swing it at him and try to get him to fly into the living room and out the front door. Think about that one! Well it made sense at the time.
After several minutes of “Lets watch the old guy swing a sheet in the air over and over,and perhaps have a heart attack” I was finally able to knock the bat down mid-flight (Please hold your applause).
This was fine, but then I didn’t know where the bat went. Miss Bonnie showed up at this point and told me next time to try to get him to land in the cat’s basket so we could carry it out and dump it. She is always very helpful at times like this.
Well, we tip-toed around and looked in the corner where he disappeared – No Bat.
Finally we found him clinging to the dining room drapes – I guess he was tired of playing “Lets dodge the sheet in the air.”
I sneaked up on him and grabbed him with the sheet (you can applaud now) and we hustled him out the front door and released him into the night where he belonged.
In the past nearly 20 years that is the third bat we have had in the house – ah the joys of living in a rural area!
Post Script
Further investigation the next morning seemed to indicate that he came in the window where we have an air conditioner in our bedroom. Our intrepid feline hunter seemed to confirm this as he smelled the drapes around the window and seemed very interested in the area – almost saying “Where did he go, where did he go.”
