Fire Walk With Me

(warning: more capital letters than is probably justified. On the other hand: BATS)

(first I have to explain that I am from out in the boonies and I had never even seen a real bat until I moved to Boston)

It STARTED OUT a lovely evening. I was on the couch with Mr. X and it’s about 11 at night and we were watching this really awesome documentary series called The Story of Film which  covers world film history from the very beginning and was made in Scotland. We’re being all cuddly and we’re just getting to a bit about Harry Lloyd when suddenly SOMETHING IS FLYING AT MY FACE.

SOMETHING BIG AND FURRY OH CHRIST ITS A BAT

We both duck and cover with couch pillows. This bat is flying right over our heads around and around in circles. IN OUR LIVING ROOM. INSIDE. WHERE WE LIVE. The TV is still talking in a pleasant Scottish accent about silent film and I am SHRIEKING. Like high-pitched girly squeals that I have never made in my life (but would make approximately 200 more times before this was through)

We scramble out of the room covering our heads and the bat FOLLOWS US. But he dips back into the Living room and we roll the door shut. (We have those weird side-closing doors). We’re busting up laughing and going How the Fuck Are We Going to Get This Thing Outside? I have to pee in terror so I go in the bathroom and when I come out IT’S RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR and I shriek and close the door and crack up laughing again because I’m trapped in the bathroom now and WTF is happening?

Somehow it had squeezed through this tiny little gap to get out of the living room and now it’s flying all over our place and it’s really fast, it’s kind of zooming around right at head level and every time I see it I let out an involuntary EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Mr. X has a broom and he gets it into the kitchen, which has a door out into the backyard. We shut it in the kitchen. I go outside around the back because we can open the door from outside. The security light comes on when you walk under it by the door. When it comes on I see MORE BATS.

MORE BATS

Okay, I only saw two more bats, but that is TOO MANY. They were hovering around the back door where the Inside Bat is stuck. Are they his buddies? Are they looking for him? I don’t know because I ran the fuck away.

(Now I have completely lost whatever remaining cool customer image I once had. I can handle mice and bugs and stuff but apparently bats make me 100% wuss.)

So now we need to get one bat out of our kitchen WITHOUT letting more bats in. It was so terrible it was kind of hilarious and I couldn’t stop laughing. Fortunately the bats didn’t like the security light. 

Thank everything for Mr. X, who was also freaked out but managed not to sound like a fire alarm whenever the bat swooped at him and was willing to assume the main bat-catching duties. He has actually done this before, once when I was out of town in this same apartment. Mr. X is a cool customer. He is also a sweetie and does not want to hurt the bat, and also doesn’t want to hurt the snails and slugs that are all over our patio so we have to tiptoe everywhere through all of this. Bless him. 

The two of us are out in the backyard and we opened the door and the bat can’t find the way out. He is ZOOMING around our kitchen at 100 miles an hour and he manages not to hit a single shelf of breakable items, but he can’t find the damned open door. So frustrating. I felt pretty sorry for him by now. He would land on the floor and kind of flop in frustration and he was actually kind of cute when he wasn’t flying at my head. At one point he went UNDER THE MICROWAVE in the tiny slot between the microwave and the counter. He hid there for awhile and then went back to divebombing everything with Mr. X chasing him around with a broom. 

It’s midnight. He landed on the wall and hung upside down and kind of went to sleep for awhile. The door’s still open and 100000 bugs are getting inside now, and we are like goddammit bat this is not the time for a nap. We got towels and a sheet and now we’re trying to catch him. Okay, Mr. X is trying to catch him, I am hovering nearby to be supportive of his efforts. 

While he’s trying to catch him the Outside Bats are getting restless. I hear weird sounds: they are sonaring me, I guess. They start flying in crazy arcs at the kitchen that I can only catch out of the corner of my eye. And at least once right at my head. I am not quite terrified anymore now everything is hysterically funny. Bats are flying at my head LOLOL! 

Finally finally the bat hangs off one of our windows upside down and Mr. X gets two towels around him and carries him outside. Inside Bat is making frantic squeaky sounds out of the towel. Mr. X is very careful not to hurt him and sets him outside and he flies away. We go inside and spray everything in the kitchen with bug spray, and then I decide that I’m going to live in a bubble from now on and also NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.