This was news to me, as I had been upstairs all day working on getting Noah's new room ready. Together we walked back up and as soon as we got to the top, the bird flew right right by me. I turned to say something to Mandy, just in time to see the door slamming on Noah's room and hear the sound of heavy furniture being piled against the door.
Recognizing that birds don't usually fly in tight circles, I figured it was probably a bat, confirming it a minute later when I saw it land on the curtain above Noah's crib. It's a tossup which one I'd rather have to deal with - bats give me the heebie jeebies, but birds crap all over the place.
I ran up to the attic to look for my trusty tennis racquet. From experience, I know you need a weapon with a high tolerance for error (more on that later). Unfortunately, I couldn't find it among the boxes and boxes of toys and baby clothes. I ran downstairs to the basement to look for something, anything, I could use to take a swipe at him while flying. Everything I looked at was either potentially too destructive to furniture or to me (golf clubs, power drill, frying pan).I finally settled on a broom and a golf towel (a what??? - I know you're asking what good a golf towel would do in this situation, and I would have been too if I had been thinking and not screaming like a little girl).
As I headed back upstairs I grabbed the camera, with the idea that I would tell Mandy it was a bird, and let her find the picture when she downloaded them on her computer along with all the others. Good thinking, eh?
Well, I hoisted the camera, the bat looked at me, I snapped one picture and the camera battery died. That's how evil this thing was - sucked the life right out of it. I started thinking about how vampires don't usually show up in photographs anyway. Or is it mirrors?
Anyway, I definitely didn't want to miss and have it airborne again (or chasing me, in particular), so I took a few practice swings and then teed off. I'm sorta surprised that I didn't take out the curtain, the blinds and the window glass. I made some sound as I swung, which Mandy told me later she thought was a curse word, but I'm pretty sure was just adreneline-fueled gibberish.
Bat was at least stunned a little and fell to the floor, and I knocked him again with the broom. It was at that point that I started thinking, "Broom bristles are pretty soft..." "Oh SHIT!!!" This is when the golf towel came in handy I'm happy to say. Wrapped him up and took him out of the house. I wasn't sure which one of us was squeeling more: him or me. The bat went to live at a "farm".
This was a much more graceful conclusion than my first encounter with a bat. When I first moved into this house, I was single and had no pets. I was coming out of the bathroom one night at about 2:00 AM, in the dark and I felt something brush my face and hair. I calmly walked over and turned on the light (and by calmly I mean I jumped/fell backward about 4 feet while yelling at the top of my lungs, clawing for the light switch like a cat trying to stay out of water). That's when I saw a bat flying in circles in my bedroom. I ran for the attic and found a tennis racquet.
I ran back downstairs, entered the room and started swinging. It was at this point where I realized that I was, literally, blinder than a bat. I didn't have my contacts in, so I was swinging that racquet like a crazy man at shadows.
It should also be noted that this was before I had any blinds on my window as well, and I was on the second story of the house. If any of my neighbors had been driving by that night, or looking out their windows at 2:00 AM...
I didn't get anymore sleep that night, but I eventually got the bat (see the score above). I'm sure Mandy will be calling exterminators on Monday.
