Last night I was monkeying around on my computer while enjoying the David Cross comedy album Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!, and I noticed a dark shape out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was and saw nothing, so I went back to my computing. A short moment later I detected the dark blur in my peripheral vision again and swung around to check and again saw nothing.
Okay, so moths move to slowly to pull this off so I’m probably just getting confused and seeing the rim of my glasses and misinterpreting it, I thought to myself.
A short moment later I saw it again, this time with an accompaning breeze striking my cheek. I turned quickly and saw that there was a panicked bat flying in circle around my apartment’s living room. I quickly ducked down and tried to evaluate the situation, dropping even farther to the floor each time the bat came my way. The first thing I could think of was that incident back in high school.
Shit, I thought, I do not want to hurt another bat tonight.
I tried to evaluate my other options. Using a blanket as a net would be too difficult and might just freak the little guy out more, there was no way to get him out the window because of the screens and as I didn’t know how he got in, I couldn’t just send him out the same way. I couldn’t call the property manager as I wasn’t sure it fell under the domain of their responsibilities and I didn’t want the bat in my apartment that long. I concluded that since the bat was flying in a panicky circle it must be looking for a way out, therefore if I can somehow get it to fly out the door I’ll just let it fly around the hallway and let the landlord deal with it tomorrow.
So I tried opening the door, but realized with the structure of the room that my holding it open from inside the apartment would increase the likelyhood that the little rodent would fly right into me. Propping it open was out of the question as I would need to be able to close it quickly once he flew out. So instead I adopted this ridiculous position. I went out into the building hallway and crouched down low on my knees pressing the palm of my hand against the inside of the door frame to keep it open. I then waited for my little friend to sense the opening by echolocation and come check it out.
Fifteen minutes passed, with the bat flying infuriating close to the door only to retreat farther back into my apartment. In the meantime, I am extrememely uncomfortable as my neighbors far down the hallway are coming and going, and while they don’t look down in my direction, it is only a matter of time as David Cross is still blaring from my computer speakers with his off-color brand of humor. At this point, the bat decides climbing up onto my verical blinds is a good idea and tries to make itself comfortable. In frustration, I picked up one of my sandals and carefully aimed it to strike the blinds hard enough to scare the bat without hurting it.
It did scare the bat. It also broke one of the blinds. I swore to myself as the bat retreated not out the door but farther back into one of the bedrooms.
Fuck, I thought, looks like I am hitting a bat tonight.
I went back into my apartment, donned my leather gloves and chose as my weapon a triangular pillow my sister brought me from Thailand. Hard enough to stun, soft enough that I may avoid injuring the little guy. I went back to my room and found him hanging from the blinds again. Once again, I tossed a sandal, although this time with far less force triggering the bats boring circle of doom.
I struck once with my death pillow and knocked him to the floor. However, as soon as I took a step he began flapping, flew confusedly at low altitude, and then resumed his flight pattern. So, I struck again with a little more force sending him sliding into my laundry. I couldn’t see him, so I assumed he must be buried. Cautiously, I approached and began peeling away clothes until I came upon him on the floor, very stunned. He tried to crawl a little ways forward and I quickly wrapped him up in an old sheet and deposited him outside the building. He appeared to be breathing, but was definately unconscious. He appeared to be uninjured, but I am no vet.
Goddammit bats! Why do you always make me hit you???