Goodbye July (part 2)

The next day I was on the phone with my mom. telling here all about the bat. As I was telling here about the part where Mr. PD hit it across the room I subconsciously walked to the spot where he ended up. I happened to look into the corner of the front hallway on the floor and saw what looked like dog poop. I was so confused (still on the phone) and was thinking when the dogs had come into the house to do that! As I got closer I realized it was another bat.


I was trying to get my mom to tell me what to do but she was no help. She's very anti anything creepy crawly so her suggestion to leave and wait for Mr. PD to come home was really no help. Besides it was like 10am! I told her I thought it was dead because it was just lying there in a lump in the corner. Aren't bat's supposed to be hanging upside down somewhere? So I grabbed my trusty broom and was about to poke it with the broom handle (still on the phone) when I had the thought "what if it's not dead and then it starts to fly around the room, it's going to freak out the kids." Too late... I poked it before I finished the thought. All my mom heard was a scream. Luckily it didn't take off flying.. it just lifted up it's head and bared it's fangs at me!

At this point I told my mom "gotta go, I'll call you after I figure out what to do. First I banished my kids to a safe distance, really I should have sent them to hide in their room with the door closed. EJ was in charge of keeping an eye on the bat while I went around trying to figure out what to do. My inner McGyver kicked it. I grabbed the widest cup I could find, my rubber gloves and a piece of card board. I very slowly sneaked up on the bat. OK so the bat had gone back to sleep and sneaking was unnecessary.

I was able to very carefully scoot the bat away from the corner with the cup and trap it underneath. I kept wondering if how fast a bat could wake up. Lucky for me he seemed to be pretty groggy and was reluctantly stirring. It was much like trying to wake up a sleeping Mr. PD! After I got the bat under the cup I proceeded to scoot the cup over onto the card board. He did not like that one bit. He slowly but surely woke up and was not very happy at all! I'm so glad he waited until after he was under the cup to wake up! Once he was on the cardboard I was able to pick up the card board and the cup together and bring him outside. The kids got a nice long look at it.

here he is playing dead

and here it is not so dead

After we had our fill of oohing, aahing and eewing over the bat I made sure the kids were safely on the other side of the glass door before releasing this bat into the wild. How? I picked up the cardboard and cup, held very securely, then I flung them as far as I could and ran for cover. The bat flew out of the cup before it even hit the ground. Yeah he was pretty awake by this point. I watched him majestically fly around in three circles then disappear back over my house! I cursed him under my breath and threatened that if he knew what was good for him he'd stay out of my house!

That afternoon the air conditioner broke... dun dun dun.

... to be continued

Norma