So last night, I came home from work like I always do around 5:30. I got my son into the house, got the diaper bag and all of my sundry crap into the house, and closed the back door behind me. I took Baby B out of his carseat, took him into the living room, and gave him a diaper change. Fed the cats. Sat down with Baby B to have a ‘chat’.
And then I saw it. Something in the corner of my living room. Flapping wings. Slowly. I barked out a short scream, jumped up, and flew into the kitchen with Baby B. Grabbed the phone and called my in-laws. Asked my mother-in-law to send my father-in-law over ASAP. Turns out my husband was there, too, so she sent him home as well.
As I hung up, I saw flapping wings on the stairs. My original thought was that we had a bird in the house, but I realized those wings were a little too slow and too smoothly black to be a bird. Of course, my mind refused to make the connection, and it’s a good thing. I herded both cats into the office with me, taking Baby B and shutting the door behind me. We stayed there until ElzaHub and his dad arrived.
They spent 20 minutes looking for this ‘thing’. It had disappeared into the dining room and ElzaHub was having a hard time finding where it had gone. Finally, we had to admit defeat. I came out of the office, and we just decided to wait until one of the cats sniffed it out. Turns out they didn’t manage to sniff it out in the next hour and a half.
We finally decided we’d sleep with the door to the upstairs shut (we have a divided staircase with a door to the upstairs that can be closed), and ElzaHub would sleep downstairs so that he could get it if it came out again. So as it was time to put the baby to bed, he went upstairs to turn on nightlights and our bedroom light. He came back down, stood on the landing in the middle of the stairs, and waited for me to bring Baby B up. As I came up the first section of stairs, I stopped and talked with ElzaHub for a second. Then my eyes drifted to the window and the top of the window. And this is what went through my mind:
OMIGOD THERE’S SOMETHING THERE IT LOOKS LIKE A FROG BUT A FROG CAN’T HANG LIKE THAT OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD!
This is what came out of my mouth:
“What the hell is that?”
ElzaHub took one look at the window, said “Take the baby and the cats and get in the office”, and both of us walked slowly down the stairs. I don’t know how I didn’t fly into the office in a panic, but I went calmly, and he threw one cat in after me (the other was under the dining room table and wouldn’t come out), and shut the door. Next thing I knew, I heard pounding, the back door open, stomping on the back porch, and then the back door slamming. ElzaHub, my hero, had thrown the thing over the fence into our neighbor’s yard (no one lives there).
Yes, we had a bat in our house. Stupid, ugly, scary, TERRIFYING BAT. We sat in the living room sharing living space with that thing for several hours. I have felt like there’s something crawling on me ever since last night. I had trouble sleeping last night, and now, I keep getting the chills over this bat. I’m glad it’s gone, but we still don’t know how it got in, and I’m really hoping it just flew in when I was bringing the baby in. I really hope it was a freak accident.
Is there such a thing as Post-Traumatic-Bat-Syndrome?
E.
