The butch and the bat

We had a lot of excitement here last night.

It was about 1:30 a.m. and W and I were sound asleep when one of the children yelled something about a bat in the house.

We both put on our glasses and got out of bed.

There were shouts of “bat!” and “where?”

And that’s when we saw it.  A bat in the second-floor hallway.

This next part is fuzzy.  There was screaming.  Mine.  And running.  Me.

After venturing into the hallway, I spotted the bat flying back and forth in the enclosed space.  I ran back into our bedroom with my hands covering my head.  Because what bat wouldn’t try to get all tangled up in this butch’s perfect hairdo?

W says my arms were flailing, but really it was a windmill move purposefully designed to ward off bats.  Get all up in this space motherfucker, and I will cut you, I communicated with my wildly swinging hands that were now weapons.  Bat cutting weapons.

It’s wings were THIS big.

Seriously, this sucker was huge.  It had a Brittney Griner wingspan.  For realz.

When the bat appeared to disappear, we determined it had made its way to the third floor.

“Good luck!” we yelled to the kid who sleeps on the third floor.

At this point, it was every man for himself.

I secured the door at the bottom of the steps leading up to the third floor.  W went to the bathroom because of excitement! and bladder!  The child who had first spotted the bat was in his room with the door closed.

And then I heard it.  A skree skree.  Or I will kill you when I get the chance or at least get tangled up in that butch hair you love so much.

And then I saw it.  The bat squeezing out the bottom of the door that I was holding shut.  I swear that bat folded itself up like some kind of origami project gone horribly wrong and slid under the door as if it was passing itself as a note.  A terrible black furry note with pointy teeth and possibly rabies.

Me.

I screamed.  Again.  That tiny girl part somewhere deep inside me screamed.  It was loud and shrill.  I couldn’t control it.  I was that kid in Home Alone.  If that kid was a little girl.

All the doors on the second floor were closed.  The bat was on the loose again in the hallway.

I ran downstairs.  To plot my next move.  Or sit on the couch.  I can’t be sure.  I was in an adrenaline-fueled fog.

Stunned and captured.

I could hear W upstairs.  Apparently, the bat was now in our bedroom circling the room.  Our cat Magic was on our bed jumping at the circling bat.  W says Magic looked at her and nodded her feline head as if to say “I’ve got this.” Magic knocked the bat down and stunned the creature, and W was able to capture it by putting a waste can on top of it.

I could hear W getting all MacGyver.  Yelling out instructions for some makeshift bat catch-and-release kit.  Something thin, something sturdy.  Now!

In the end, she slid a piece of cardboard under the waste can, carried the can outside and released the bat into the night.

I tried to gather all of my butch dignity as I made my way upstairs and into bed.