I awoke at 2:30 am to Kat whisper-shrieking at me. In my groggy haze I understood that there was something wrong in her room and that I should be taking it pretty seriously. After a few moments the sleepiness cleared from my brain and I finally started to comprehend what she was saying.
“That fucking cat brought a bat in through the kitty door and is batting it around on my bed” she exclaimed with outrage as she shut my door and plopped down on my bed in a little scared ball.
“WHAT?!? There’s a BAT in the house?” I questioned as I bolted upright and pasted myself against the wall farthest from the door.
“Yes, haven’t you been listening to what I’m saying?!?”
It was three-quarters of the way through our summer in Oregon and we were house-sitting for a friend of a friend of my parents. Most nights, we would call the cat in and lock the kitty-door for the night before trooping off to bed in semi-intoxicated stupors. This night had been no different except for that when we called the cat to come in, it didn’t. Rather than wait up or look for the cat, we’d made the decision to leave the kitty door open and hope for the best. That is how we’d ended up with an injured bat in the house, being stalked and toyed with by an unruly cat.
From the safety of my room we made a rough plan that included somehow shutting her door (to contain the cat/bat situation) and running past her room, down stairs to get weapons in what was surely going to be an epic battle of cat versus bat versus Anna Maria and Kat.
With a few false starts punctuated with whimpers and shrieks we managed to close her door and get to the kitchen. There we put together a cadre of supplies--a broom, dustpan, large aluminum bowl that we’d been using to float corn chips in during our nightly wine-in-the-hot-tub sessions, and a few spatulas.
We slowly crept back upstairs and pressed our trembling ears against the door to see what we could hear......nothing. I think that actually terrified us more as if the bat and cat may have taken the time we’d been using to prepare to team up against us and make an equally absurd battle plan to the one we had outlined.
We slowly opened the door to see the cat flip the bat off the bed with one paw stroke and jump down after it. The cat was most certainly thrilled with its game of cat and mouse....well, cat and bat I guess.
It took us a few harrowing minutes to get the cat away from the bat and lock it in my room, slamming the door with a “BAD CAT!”
We steeled ourselves for the task at hand. We now had to find, trap, and dispose of an injured, but very much alive, bat that had flopped its way into hiding in Kat’s room. We went at it tentatively, moving articles of clothing, books, and random other possessions with a broom stick while clinging to each other and making indecipherable noises of fear.
Within moments, we caught the flapping of a wing under Kat’s dresser and watched in horror as the bat flopped its way into a pile of clean clothes on Kat's floor.
“Okay, we’ll lift each piece of clothing with the broom stick until we find the bat, then we’ll trap it under the bowl” Kat said in a lightning-speed whisper.
“um, okay, yeah, that sounds good. Here’s the broom.” I answered
“I don’t want to do the broom part!” Kat answered in a panic-stricken voice.
“Well, I don’t want to either” I cried. “Would you rather do the bowl part?”
“No! I don’t want to do ANY of it”
“Well, neither do I!” I whimpered back.
“Okay, give me the broom and get ready with the bowl” Kat said in a voice that showed that she had a slightly better grip on her fear than she had moments ago and certainly a better grip on her fear than I had on mine.
Kat slowly inched toward the pile and with the broom handle extended as far from her body as she could get it slowly started lifting clothes and transferring them to a new, bat-free pile a few feet away. A shirt, a pair of shorts, another shirt.....this went on for 8 to ten articles of clothing until we unearthed the bat. It began panic-flopping in all directions and Kat screamed “BOWL!”
I sprang forward (my movements resembling those of someone trapped in pudding--my fear holding me back slightly while my adrenaline pushed me forward) and slammed the bowl down on the bat. My aim was less than perfect. One of the bat’s wings was protruding from beneath the rim of the bowl but the bat was contained.
We began screaming at each other in incredibly high-pitched voices. “What do we do now?”, “Oh my god”, “Now what?”, “We did it!”
It may have been a little early to be congratulating ourselves as we still had a dying bat under and aluminum bowl with no clear game plan.
“Okay” I said, “go downstairs and get that pizza box and rip the top off. We’ll slide it under the bowl and then we can move it.”
Moments later, Kat returned with the pizza box top and we carefully slid it under the bowl. After one deep breath, Kat grabbed our containment contraption, and took off down the stairs. As if we were communicating telepathically, I ran past her, flung open the front door and watched her bound into the yard and, in one graceful move, pitch the whole set-up into the street, where it bounced and landed with a clang.
We stood, breathing heavily, and looking at it tentatively. The bat flopped from the street to the underside of a bush. Without retrieving our bat-containment contraption, we went back in the house and screamed “OH MY GOD” at each other. The smiles on our faces showed the pride we felt in ourselves for being so brave and ingenious.
Then we did what any normal people would do and had a snack. While spooning raw brownie batter into our mouths we decided that our parents would be as proud of us as we were of ourselves and would probably like to hear about this right now.
It was about 3:15 Oregon time so calling my parents was out of the question. We rang the Valencia’s, as they lived on the east coast and we were sure that upon hearing our story, they would be thrilled that we had called even if it was only slightly past 6 am on a Saturday.
Mr. Valencia answered in that special way that a parent answers the phone when it’s the middle of the night and their children are not under their roof. “What, huh, what, hello!?!”
“Dad” Kat exclaimed, slightly louder than she should have for 6:15 am “There’s a bat, and the cat brought it in, and we had a bowl, and a broom” The story starting tumbling out, in no particular order, until Mr. Valencia interrupted her.
“Kat! It is 6:15 in the morning and you are 3000 miles away. If there is a bat in your house, you are going to have to figure out how to deal with it without my help.”
“No, dad, you don’t understand” Kat said, slightly dejected but sure that once he heard the whole story, his voice would shift from alarm to pride “we dealt with it. We trapped it and we got rid of it. All on our own!” she finished emphatically.
“Then why are you calling me?!?” After realizing that we were not in danger, or even any kind of remote physical or mental distress, Mr. Valencia’s voice had gone from concern to anger. I leaned back from the position I had been holding pressed up against half of the receiver, grimaced at Kat and whispered “he sounds mad...”
Kat’s voice softened in tone and volume as we back-peddled our excitement slightly. “We just thought you’d be proud that we handled it. Sorry, we can talk about this later”
“I am proud of you. That’s great, but call back later” Mr. Valencia said, with a little less anger, and then hung up.
After a few more spoon-fulls of brownie batter, the adrenaline began wearing off and we agreed with a shrug, “we should go to sleep” trudged back up the stairs, let the cat out of my room, and got back in our beds.
I heard Kat call from her room, “night AM” and I could tell she was saying it through a smile. I grinned and replied “night Kat” and we drifted off to sleep, our hearts full. We had gone to battle with one of nature’s beasts and we had won. In the morning we retrieved our bowl (which we only then realized was no longer a hot tub-snack-floating option) from the street and briefly looked for the bat. It was no where to be found.
“That fucking cat brought a bat in through the kitty door and is batting it around on my bed” she exclaimed with outrage as she shut my door and plopped down on my bed in a little scared ball.
“WHAT?!? There’s a BAT in the house?” I questioned as I bolted upright and pasted myself against the wall farthest from the door.
“Yes, haven’t you been listening to what I’m saying?!?”
It was three-quarters of the way through our summer in Oregon and we were house-sitting for a friend of a friend of my parents. Most nights, we would call the cat in and lock the kitty-door for the night before trooping off to bed in semi-intoxicated stupors. This night had been no different except for that when we called the cat to come in, it didn’t. Rather than wait up or look for the cat, we’d made the decision to leave the kitty door open and hope for the best. That is how we’d ended up with an injured bat in the house, being stalked and toyed with by an unruly cat.
From the safety of my room we made a rough plan that included somehow shutting her door (to contain the cat/bat situation) and running past her room, down stairs to get weapons in what was surely going to be an epic battle of cat versus bat versus Anna Maria and Kat.
With a few false starts punctuated with whimpers and shrieks we managed to close her door and get to the kitchen. There we put together a cadre of supplies--a broom, dustpan, large aluminum bowl that we’d been using to float corn chips in during our nightly wine-in-the-hot-tub sessions, and a few spatulas.
We slowly crept back upstairs and pressed our trembling ears against the door to see what we could hear......nothing. I think that actually terrified us more as if the bat and cat may have taken the time we’d been using to prepare to team up against us and make an equally absurd battle plan to the one we had outlined.
We slowly opened the door to see the cat flip the bat off the bed with one paw stroke and jump down after it. The cat was most certainly thrilled with its game of cat and mouse....well, cat and bat I guess.
It took us a few harrowing minutes to get the cat away from the bat and lock it in my room, slamming the door with a “BAD CAT!”
We steeled ourselves for the task at hand. We now had to find, trap, and dispose of an injured, but very much alive, bat that had flopped its way into hiding in Kat’s room. We went at it tentatively, moving articles of clothing, books, and random other possessions with a broom stick while clinging to each other and making indecipherable noises of fear.
Within moments, we caught the flapping of a wing under Kat’s dresser and watched in horror as the bat flopped its way into a pile of clean clothes on Kat's floor.
“Okay, we’ll lift each piece of clothing with the broom stick until we find the bat, then we’ll trap it under the bowl” Kat said in a lightning-speed whisper.
“um, okay, yeah, that sounds good. Here’s the broom.” I answered
“I don’t want to do the broom part!” Kat answered in a panic-stricken voice.
“Well, I don’t want to either” I cried. “Would you rather do the bowl part?”
“No! I don’t want to do ANY of it”
“Well, neither do I!” I whimpered back.
“Okay, give me the broom and get ready with the bowl” Kat said in a voice that showed that she had a slightly better grip on her fear than she had moments ago and certainly a better grip on her fear than I had on mine.
Kat slowly inched toward the pile and with the broom handle extended as far from her body as she could get it slowly started lifting clothes and transferring them to a new, bat-free pile a few feet away. A shirt, a pair of shorts, another shirt.....this went on for 8 to ten articles of clothing until we unearthed the bat. It began panic-flopping in all directions and Kat screamed “BOWL!”
I sprang forward (my movements resembling those of someone trapped in pudding--my fear holding me back slightly while my adrenaline pushed me forward) and slammed the bowl down on the bat. My aim was less than perfect. One of the bat’s wings was protruding from beneath the rim of the bowl but the bat was contained.
We began screaming at each other in incredibly high-pitched voices. “What do we do now?”, “Oh my god”, “Now what?”, “We did it!”
It may have been a little early to be congratulating ourselves as we still had a dying bat under and aluminum bowl with no clear game plan.
“Okay” I said, “go downstairs and get that pizza box and rip the top off. We’ll slide it under the bowl and then we can move it.”
Moments later, Kat returned with the pizza box top and we carefully slid it under the bowl. After one deep breath, Kat grabbed our containment contraption, and took off down the stairs. As if we were communicating telepathically, I ran past her, flung open the front door and watched her bound into the yard and, in one graceful move, pitch the whole set-up into the street, where it bounced and landed with a clang.
We stood, breathing heavily, and looking at it tentatively. The bat flopped from the street to the underside of a bush. Without retrieving our bat-containment contraption, we went back in the house and screamed “OH MY GOD” at each other. The smiles on our faces showed the pride we felt in ourselves for being so brave and ingenious.
Then we did what any normal people would do and had a snack. While spooning raw brownie batter into our mouths we decided that our parents would be as proud of us as we were of ourselves and would probably like to hear about this right now.
It was about 3:15 Oregon time so calling my parents was out of the question. We rang the Valencia’s, as they lived on the east coast and we were sure that upon hearing our story, they would be thrilled that we had called even if it was only slightly past 6 am on a Saturday.
Mr. Valencia answered in that special way that a parent answers the phone when it’s the middle of the night and their children are not under their roof. “What, huh, what, hello!?!”
“Dad” Kat exclaimed, slightly louder than she should have for 6:15 am “There’s a bat, and the cat brought it in, and we had a bowl, and a broom” The story starting tumbling out, in no particular order, until Mr. Valencia interrupted her.
“Kat! It is 6:15 in the morning and you are 3000 miles away. If there is a bat in your house, you are going to have to figure out how to deal with it without my help.”
“No, dad, you don’t understand” Kat said, slightly dejected but sure that once he heard the whole story, his voice would shift from alarm to pride “we dealt with it. We trapped it and we got rid of it. All on our own!” she finished emphatically.
“Then why are you calling me?!?” After realizing that we were not in danger, or even any kind of remote physical or mental distress, Mr. Valencia’s voice had gone from concern to anger. I leaned back from the position I had been holding pressed up against half of the receiver, grimaced at Kat and whispered “he sounds mad...”
Kat’s voice softened in tone and volume as we back-peddled our excitement slightly. “We just thought you’d be proud that we handled it. Sorry, we can talk about this later”
“I am proud of you. That’s great, but call back later” Mr. Valencia said, with a little less anger, and then hung up.
After a few more spoon-fulls of brownie batter, the adrenaline began wearing off and we agreed with a shrug, “we should go to sleep” trudged back up the stairs, let the cat out of my room, and got back in our beds.
I heard Kat call from her room, “night AM” and I could tell she was saying it through a smile. I grinned and replied “night Kat” and we drifted off to sleep, our hearts full. We had gone to battle with one of nature’s beasts and we had won. In the morning we retrieved our bowl (which we only then realized was no longer a hot tub-snack-floating option) from the street and briefly looked for the bat. It was no where to be found.
I think I made an omelete in that bowl last week...I guess I owe Mr. Valencia for living on the east coast! He saved me a phone call. I, of ocourse, would have favored the death penalty for the bat, as they steal small children. But you were safe--they are repelled by cheap beer and wine...Good yarn!
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