I was sitting at my dining room table working on dreaded taxes, when thankfully (in retrospect) Judd started to cry and wanted to be rocked to sleep. So I got up and went to take care of him. Not but a few minutes had passed while I sat on the couch with him when my daycare kid exclaimed "You have a bird in your house!" I was confused at first because I thought she was talking to the t.v. But I happened to look up just as something came hurling towards me and my baby. I screamed bloody murder and covered us with a couch pillow, while Tony screamed and jumped off the couch onto the floor. He then yelled, "is that a bird or a bat?" I screamed back terrified "I don't know!!!" Then the thing came flying at us again and was now swarming around the dining room/living room area and Tony yelled again "That's definitely a bat!!!!!" So as the bat darted around the house Tony and I screaming our heads off, me covering myself with a couch cushion and Tony swatting at it with Judd's bouncy chair (pause for image). I was yelling for Tony to open the front door (which is in the dining room) and prop open the screen door so he could try and get it to fly out. Well, that is what he was trying to do, but if you've ever experienced it you know what I am talking about...it is terrifying to have something flying at you like that.
Finally there was a break in the excitement when the bat flew into the kitchen and landed on the window ledge under the curtain. The curtains are sheer so Tony could see it all the time. At this point I am cowered on the floor, Judd crying in my arms, with a couch cushion at the ready. Tony is standing in the kitchen doorway contemplating what to do next to try and catch it or kill it, and Owen and Raymond are coming down from their beds from upstairs yelling "What is it??" I told them Batman was in the house. They wanted to see it ,but I sent them back upstairs. During all the panic I remember my five year old daycare kid, Bethany, sitting on the couch all by herself completely calm. She wasn't cowered down or anything. Brave girl...but hate to say it...she was on her own! Every one for themselves. I probably would have left Judd in his chair too if he had been there in the first place! What a terrible mom I am!
Anyways...on with the story. So we left off with me on the floor with Judd and my pillow, Tony in the kitchen doorway and the bat in the kitchen window. Tony darted around trying to find something he could hit it with, not to smash it but to stun it or something so he could get it out of the house. He finally found the old plastic high chair tray cover that we don't use anymore and went into the kitchen. I braced myself....5-10 minutes passed and I kept asking, "What's happening?" Finally I heard a loud thud and Tony exclaimed "It's definitely dead, I hit it". Now I was worried that blood and guts were everywhere, but they weren't. Tony said he stood there counting to three about twenty times before he got enough courage to actually hit it. He was afraid that it would start flying again and he was really close this time. For all I know he only stunned it and it is now stuck in a garbage bag in the garbage can in the garage in the basement!
He picked it up with the bag and I took a picture of him with it and he threw it out. He wanted me to take a picture of him with the real bat and not just the bag, but I didn't want to get that close, and I was afraid it was not dead. I could just picture it waking up while Tony had a hold of it in a bag and then freaking out and dropping it so it started flying all over again.
I hope no one ever experiences having a bird or a bat in their house. I felt like I was in the movie the Great Outdoors. Only one other time in my life did I have this experience and that was in Gillette, when I was home alone and a bird was in the house. I don't know why it is so terrifying, but Tony and I are now coming down from an adrenaline high and we were both shaking and freaked out. It had been right where I had been sitting at the dining room table!!!! Thanks to Judd, I was saved the risk of being even closer to it than I had to be.
Below is the picture of Tony with his prize in the bag and his weapon of choice. 
3 comments:
haha! this is hilarious!
Batman?! That made me laugh really hard! And yes, *I* remember the bird in the house incident in Gillette, because I was babysitting at the Pfennings and you called me freaking out! :)
Poor bat, hope he didn't suffocate. :( You know me. :)
Oh my gosh, Stacey, I didn't read this until this evening. That is scary!!!We had a bat in our house when I was younger, and our family lived in the country. I think your Aunt Donna had our brother try to catch it, and we were all screaming and carrying on. I love that scene in The Great Outdoors. It is hilarious. Well...that was a lot of excitement for the day. Maybe you should have taken it to have it checked for rabies.
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