Night Boys. Night Belle and Linken ........ Night Bat.

Ahhhh, Sunday night, 11:30pm.

Time to relax.

After zoning out in a nice hot shower for half an hour, I was ready for bed. 

On my way out of the bathroom, Adam stops me with, 'Mom, I'm going to show you a magic trick'.

He takes me to the dining room to show me his latest trick, then he goes to get Alec for his encore presentation.

I'm sitting at the table, waiting for their return, looking at the clock, thinking of crawling into bed in the next few minutes, when I hear the screams ... 

SCREAMS from the basement, and the sound of pounding feet on the stairs.

Both boys flew through the door, and started shouting at the same time, 'There's a bat downstairs! It's HUGE! It flew into Alec's room! There's a bat downstairs! There's a bat downstairs!'

CRAP! So much for crawling into bed.

Apparently, it was time for; Operation Bat Evacuation!

 

But first, we needed bat evacuation attire

Picture it, if you will ... red plaid jammies, hair still damp from the shower, winter jacket zipped up to the neck, hood up, with face protector jacked up to the eyes.

And of course, rubber boots to the knees ... and broom in hand.

 

Oh, wait a minute, there IS a picture of it ...

 

Bring it, Bat!  I'm ready!   

Scarier looking than you are at the moment, perhaps, but READY!

 

Once we were sure we were protected, we headed down the stairs.

Me first. Yes, with the broom. Then Adam, and Alec bringing up the rear.

 

Keep in mind, the basement still hasn't been finished, aside from Alec's room, which was built last year.

It's dark down there.

LOTS of places for a freakin' bat to hide!

But, there was light shining from the laundry room, and Alec's room.

The boys had left the door to his room open, in their haste to get the hell out of there!

 

Now, before I have the animal rights/control people after me, let me be VERY clear in saying, I never had ANY intention to hurt the bat.  At all.

I only wanted to stun him enough, to get him out of my house! 

NO bats were harmed in Operation Bat Evacuation.

M'kay? M'kay!

 

I made it down the first three steps. Slowly creeping down each one. Eyes scanning as much of the room as I could see.

On the fourth step, I saw it.

Or at least, I saw a HUGE wing span shadow swooping across Alec's door and on the ceiling of his room.

 

Without even thinking, I let it out.

'AAARRRRRAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!'

Then turned around on the stairs, nudging Adam in front of me, with a, 'BACK!  BACK!  BACK!'

Funny thing was, in my head, I was actually saying 'RETREAT!  RETREAT! RETREAT!'

But for some reason, I didn't want to risk making anyone laugh at that moment.

 

With Plan A - Face Him Head On- a failure, we turned to Plan B.

Yes, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here ...

We ventured back downstairs a minute later.  Adam ran into the laundry room, unlocked the back door and then charged through it, while I 'had his back' at the laundry room door.

Ya know, making sure there were no sneak attacks from behind.

Once he was outside, I ran back upstairs and slammed the door.

Amazing, how fast I moved in those boots!

 

No sign of the bat.

 

The three of us waited on the deck, just to the side of the door, so we could see when the bat flew out.

Cause that was 'the plan (B)' of course.

Open the door, and the bat would find his own way out.

Yeah.

Not so much.

 

45 min later, bat won round one. 

He had the advantage. He can see better in the dark than I can!

With both doors to the basement closed and bat sequestered, I hearded everyone off to bed.

Myself included.  I'd face him again the next day.

In daylight.

MY advantage!

'Night boys. Night Belle and Linken. .............. Night Bat.'

 

Next day, I left work around 2:30 to head home and finally execute Operation Bat Evacuation.

As soon as I got through the door, I headed for the boots, jacket and broom.

This was it.  Bat was going. TODAY!

Without giving myself time to think about what I might find, I headed down the stairs.

About midway down, I stopped, scanning the room.

No sign of the bat.

I got to the bottom of the stairs and listened.

Nothing.

As I started to get further into the room, I leaned around a wooden beam, streatching my neck out ... just far enough ... to see if I could spot him.

 

And there he was.

Sound asleep on the side of the beam, near the top.

CRAP!  I found him.

 

Again, without giving myself too much time to think, or for the boys, who were lingering around ... just close enough ... to distract me, I pushed him with the broom off the pole.

He fell on the floor, and started to spread his wings.

Pump them.  Sort of.

I admit.  I screamed like a girlie girl, flapped my arms and backed up a few steps.

But I didn't run.

I did NOT run!!!!

 

Instead, once I saw he wasn't going anywhere, I took a deep breath, and took a step forward.

At first, I tried to scoop him directly into the garbage bag. Didn't work.

So, I scooped him into a dustpan, dropped him in the garbage bag, ran out the back door and let him go outside on the lawn. 

I don't think he was too happy about that.

Did you know those little suckers chirp like birds when you throw them outside into the daylight?

A much nicer variation of the sound vampires make, though ;-) 

 

He may not have liked it, but he was alive, and well, and most importantly ... outside (in the shade)!

I checked on him a little while later, and he was gone.

He may be under my deck, plotting his murderous revenge, and sending bat signals to all his buddies, but for now ...

For tonight ... 

 

Bat - 0
Kim - V-I-C-T-O-R-I-O-U-S!!!!
MUAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHHA

 

K.

And once again, if you didn't catch it earlier, NO bats were harmed in Operation Bat Evacuation.