The Bat Scared Santa's Reindeer Away

On Christmas Eve, we returned from merry-making with the neighbors -- lunch and presents with one then dinner, tree-trimming and presents with another. I had just settled on the sofa with a book and a dog in my lap when I saw the shadows of wings fluttering in the hallway. The scene was not unlike an old horror movie where the maiden is tucked into bed, sees the shadows of bat wings, thinks she must be imagining things and moments later is sucked dry by a vampire.

Luckily, I'd seen that movie and yelled to Drew that there was a bat in the house. Henry, our tiny kitten, confirmed it as he raced along the hallway, looking straight up and leaping at the bat, ready to go in for the kill if only his tiny kitten legs could catapult him to the ceiling.

Let me tell you, bats are creepy. They're all well and good in the outdoors, flying out from under the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin, off to eat their weight in mosquitos. Flying about in your house on Christmas Eve is another matter. C.R.E.E.P.Y. And wrong. And libel to scare Santa and his reindeer away.

Our first problem was that none of our rooms on the first floor have doors. It isn't that kind of house -- it flows, it has big formal rooms for entertaining. Plus, most of the windows don't open, so we couldn't just shut him up, open a window and hope for the best -- as advised by the neighbor who has had bats in her house before. Plus, who in their right mind would leave the relative warmth of indoors to go out in the frigid Pittsburgh winter temperatures? Not me. Not the bat.

Drew, a city boy through and through, was just as freaked out as I was, but because he is the boy he was called upon to vanquish the winged intruder. Drew grabs a shirt box and brandishes it as a shield to protect himself. I hand him the broom and then duck into another room laughing hysterically as Drew repeatedly hits the deck as the bat flutters by.

The bat finally settles on the ornate plaster work just above the murals in what has been dubbed "the music room," because George Gershwin played the piano there when he was in town. Naturally, it is the nicest room in the house and not one that you'd want bat guts splattered all over, so my plan of bashing him with a broom was nixed.

Drew stood there trying to reason with the bat: "Man, you really can't be here any more. This is really uncool. It's time to go. Come on man. Out you go." I pointed out that he wasn't trying to reason with stoned guy at a party and the parents were on their way home. It was a BAT. Obviously, that tactic didn't work. Instead, I thought whipping cat toys past Drew's head in the direction of the bat might get him off the wall and out of the pretty room. Alas, I didn't tell Drew that I was going to throw the cat toys, so he nearly had a heart attack thinking the bat had an aggressive friend. Oops.

We opened the door in the music room. Turned on all the lights, thinking the bat wouldn't flap into really well lit rooms and I went to the garage to get the net I bought when I had to fish the dead fish out of the pond. After 5 minutes or so of Drew trying to screw up the courage to put the net over the bat and repeated laments of "he's looking at me! He's looking at me with his beady, creepy bat eyes!" Drew did it. Then the bat just started walking along the wall, trying to get out from underneath the net. I'm screaming "poke him with a stick! poke him with a stick!"

Eventually, Drew did poke him with a stick and the bat fell into the net, Drew rushed outside, shut the door and then worked to release the little invader from the net, so he didn't get stuck and die. Me, I operate under the take no prisoners theory of: If something comes in my house and it shouldn't be there, I get to kill it. Guess that's the Texan in me.