I don't consider myself to be a "drama queen." Expressive - but not dramatic. Drama implies some sort of life-or-death situation over acted both on-screen and in life. I just choose to make things more entertaining and colorful! For those of you with younger girls - a bit more "Fancy Nancy," if you will.
Boring Story:
A bat gets in the house at night, forcing us to relocate to a bat-free bedroom.
Expressive Story:
Several Saturday's ago I was awakened at approximately 2:07AM by the swish of wings zooming over my head. (See - isn't this better?!) Me, Katrina, 3 dogs and at least 1 cat were sleeping in the "snug pit" - our basement sectional couch all pushed in to one big bed of lady-power on weekends. (John is welcome to join - but that much estrogen is a lot for a man to absorb!) I watched the dark shape soar around me for about 5 minutes to confirm that I wasn't dreaming (I have a history of seeing things in my sleep) before tossing the covers over my daughter and sneaking upstairs to wake the man of the house.
There's A WHAT in the house
"John!" I hissed,"There's a bat in the basement!" "Did you check with the man in the closet first?" he asked. Funny guy. (And yes, I've awakened him before CONVINCED that there was a man in the closet. It's a wonder the poor man gets any sleep!) He got out of bed to humor me, primarily, and we headed back downstairs. I kept low. John didn't, (He didn't believe me!), and was rewarded with a near hit to the face on one of the bats milk runs along the length of the basement. We managed to wrap Katrina up in a blanket and crawl back upstairs to the "safe zone" with dogs. In looking back I saw the bat embattled with one of the cats in a crazed dance of swoop, jump and jab. Go Shadow!
Now a boring story person would hope that the story ended here. It doesn't. (Good news for my expressive friends!)
The bat made another showing the next night, but only revealed itself to John. Lucky guy! We now officially had a bat in the house. Calls were made to various "critter catchers" - which for me is the equivalent of buying flood insurance when you live on a mountain top. We'll get to them in a bit. Calls were also made to the pediatrician - just to be safe. We knew we had been exposed but were pretty certain that no one had been bitten. "Oh, you have to get shots!" Seriously? The same response also came from the Health Department, Critter-Catcher-Dude, and our health insurance provider. REALLY? This is one of those fun marriage moments when you have to agree to disagree. The reality is that on the off-chance we had been bitten or scratched AND the bat had rabies, without the shots, you die. Life without Katrina or John was unthinkable - they moved forward with the series of shots. I tossed the dice and decided to gamble - also knowing that I was heavily insured and that John would have a beautiful asian nanny and money to burn if I started foaming at the mouth and could no longer see my reflection in the mirror.
Doesn't garlic keep the vampires away?
Garlic may work in the movies, but if you want to keep yourself from turning to team Twilight, you have to get the shots. The first is a series of three. I wasn't there for it, but apparently they came after Katrina with two needles the size of turkey basters and jabbed one into each leg simultaneously. This set the mood for the last shot of the day, and likely every shot to come in her young life. (John received four in his bottom - so I don't know which is worse!) These were followed with weekly shots over the next 3 weeks and exposed us to a full spectrum of really good nurses who took the time to wait for Katrina to be ready for the shot and really bad nurses who threatened to bring "someone in to hold you down if you can't do this." Not my child, you don't!
Critters-R-Us
(And if I knew how to make the "R" backward in the business name, it would be even better!) Critter guy came and poked around our attics (we have two) peered up fireplace chimneys and examined all of the various nooks and crannies on the exterior of the house. We were declared non-infested and provided him with a check for $160 just for stopping by and spending that 20 minutes. To have him "seal" the house was another $600. (This was another one of those marriage moments, but we agreed that continuing to fund critter-catcher-guy was not really helping society.) Perhaps "Batty" (yes, we named him) just stopped by the say hi one night and stayed for awhile!
The icing on the cake, and the appropriate end to this story came the Friday after Katrina's last rabies shot. As we walked to her locker before the start of school, we heard from behind us, "No - I caught the bat this morning - it's out in the courtyard." "Bat!" said Katrina, looking at me with big eyes! "Did he say bat!" He did indeed. "But," I told her - getting down to her level and looking her in the eyes, "you are probably the only one in the entire school with anti-bat super powers now! Isn't that cool?" She thought that it was indeed cool, and to seal the deal, we walked right to that courtyard (window) and smirked at the bat hanging outside. Take that, bat!
Coming Next Time - Why do we always wait until October to take out the dock and the boat? (And yes, I still owe you a blog on my dad's chapter.) Peace
