…press two

Just in time for the holiday season, we had a friendly visitor come down the chimney and into our home last night. Only instead of being jolly, fat, and dressed in red this little guest was little, brown, and possibly rabid.

At about 1:30 in the morning Amanda thought she heard something. No, that's not quite right. She thought she had heard something AND felt it fly past her in our bed. She did her best to collect herself and listened for "it" again. When she heard it in the bathroom she woke me up, saying that there was, um, something in the bathroom. Still in a stupor, I asked her to elaborate. She said that there was "an animal… or a bird… in the bathroom." I listened for it for a moment and then heard a clicking, rustling sound from that direction.

I jumped out of bed, threw on some jeans, grabbed the aluminum baseball bat that I keep around for occasions such as this, and went on patrol. I flipped on the light in the bathroom and… nothing. I proceeded down the hall toward the "school room" and looked inside. It was still dark, but there was enough light from the hall light that I could see in. That's when I saw it.

At first I didn't know what it was. It kind of looked like a small brown banana hanging on the trim around the window. As the gears in my mind ground to a halt, I realized that our home, *my* home, had been invaded by a bat. Not entirely sure of the implications of this newly obtained realiziation, and not at all sure how I was going to remediate it, I stood motionless outside the door. The flying mouse took advantage of my hesitation and swooped down from his perch, flying straight toward my eyeballs. I slammed the door, turned around, and explained to Amanda that there was, in fact, a bat trapped in the school room.

We both went through the obligatory quotes from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ("Where's Eddie? He usually eats these things." and so on) before heading to the laptop to get the number for Animal Control. I called them up and got a message that their office was currently closed. Thankfully, the message gave me some options. "If you have been bitten by an animal, press one." I was trying to decide just what option a guy in my situation should choose when a second option was presented. "If there is a bat in your home, press two." Seriously? That's option 2? How often does this happen?

I pressed two and was informed that I should remain on the line while my call was connected to the 911 emergency dispatch. I handed the phone to Amanda since, after all of the hullabaloo I was in need of a bathroom break. The dispatcher told her that they would send an animal control officer by to "take care of it." I told Amanda she could go back to sleep, and she looked at me as if I should know better after being married to her for five years.

About 15 minutes later the Animal Control van pulled up. The guy comes to our door wearing black rubber gloves and carrying a plastic dish that looked a lot like an empty whipped cream container. I showed him to the room where the bat had been detained. He cracked the door, poked his head in, and then defiantly entered the room. He flipped on the light and closed the door, leaving me in the hallway to wait and pray for his safety. I wasn't sure what I expected to hear, but moments later I heard a wheezing, screeching sound that I hoped was coming from the now captured creature. The officer emerged with the bat in said translucent plastic container. Humans: 1, Flying Mammals: 0.

We sent the officer on his way and settled back into bed, Amanda's nerves still frazzled from her close encounter and my thoughts consumed by the question of whether or not I could have captured the bat myself. Maybe if I had my racquetball racket next to the bed instead of the baseball bat…