Late one night just before going to bed, I walked outside for some air, and on my way back in, someting sinister caught my eye. There was a bat flying back and forth from our kitchen to our living room. Time. Stood. Still. Until that moment I would have told you that I wasnt afraid of bats, oh no, I just love to see them flying around at night when we're camping. Outside. At a safe distance. Inside, is, I find, another matter. I discovered that I am actually quite terrified of bats when they share the same enclosure with me, and are in close proximity to my hair. I have alot of hair. Upon sight of the bat in my house, I immediately imagined the bat (the HUGE bat) tangled up in my tresses, fighting to escape, and biting me repeatedly in the process (thus giving me rabies, and the plague, and every other disease known to man) so instead of entering and bringing this idea to reality, I began shouting for my husband, who had already gone to bed. During the time I was waiting for him to come save me I propped the door open in hopes that the bat would rather be outside than in, thus flying out by his own accord. In the time it took my husband to get up, wondering groggily what was going on, the bat was nowhere to be found. He assumed that the bat had flown out while I wasnt looking. I assumed the evil vermin was hiding in the curtains, so we made a thorough check of the house, shaking out curtains and rattling couches, looking in closets, and in every dark corner. No bat. And though he denies it, I think my husband thought Id finally lost it. Too excited to go to sleep, I laid down to read. Just as I started getting sleepy I heard our ceiling fan making a strange whooshing sound and looked up. The black devil! He wasnt just in my house, now he was in my inner sanctum! I did the only smart thing there was to do; I covered my head and screamed to the top of my lungs that he was back. My husband jumped out of bed (no choice but to believe me this time!) and chased the bat from our room. From across the house I could hear my daughter worriedly asking, "Mom? Whats wrong?" but before I could tell her to flee from the house and save herself, she began screaming to the top of her lungs. The bat had made its journey from our bedroom, through our boys' bedroom, and into hers. It travelled this path for about an hour. Or, ok, more like a minute (lets face it, in 'bat in the house' time, this does indeed equal an hour. At least.) Finally, my husband was able to get it closed out of the bedrooms. I layed there in the darkness, head still covered, and completely petrified as he worked on shooing it the rest of the way out of the house. He returned a few minutes later and assured me that the problem had been taken care of as he'd 'heard it whoosh by his head after opening the door, and then saw it fly by as he stood outside'. Good. No sleep in sight, I pulled my book back out and began to read again. Oh, the evil wing'ed deceptor. Just as I was dozing off I heard the 'fan' noise again, and turned to see that Draculla had indeed returned for blood. This time my husband jumped to action just in time to see him fly into the boys' bedroom and hit my oldest son squarely in the forehead as he sat up in his top bunk. My son's reaction to this incident? A sleepy mumbling of the words, "He hit me." after which was proceeded promptly by his laying back down and going directly back to sleep. (Teenage boys. 'Nuff said.) Once again my husband returned to the bedroom uttering the uber reassuring words, "Im almost sure this time!" Great. I read for another hour. Nothing. Another 30 minutes. Still nothing. So I finally went begrudgingly to sleep, and managed to stay so for what was left of the night. And this, is how the story ends: Recently, with the weather cooling we've been having critter problems; spiders that want to snuggle up with us in the bed, mice unwelcomely making themselves at home in our home, etc. so we have mouse traps set for the larger of the afore said beasties, and the next morning when my husband awoke, he came to me saying, "Well, guess what was in the mouse trap?" It wasnt a mouse.
