"Bird in the House, Ma"

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table as usual, puffing on his cigarette and sipping his beer. He did his deepest thinking at the kitchen table. You could see the wheels turning, and just know he was devising a get-rich-quick plan. But this particular night, his thinking was interrupted.

We were visiting for the weekend. My husband was in his usual place too--in the family room laying on the couch watching television. My kids were maybe three and six. They were with the rest of us in the family room. Dad came out of his thought balloon long enough to say, "Bird in the house, Ma". No excitement. Just a statement about the bird he saw flying around in the kitchen. I hopped up and ran into the kitchen, telling Dad, "Don't hurt it!".

Then the "bird" took a swoop at my head. I ducked just in time and yelled, "IT'S A BAT!!!!". Then pandemonium broke out. I panicked. The kids absorbed my fear and they started yelling and crying. I grabbed my babies and ran from room to room, trying to keep them away from the bat. The bat kept following us through the house. I was not thinking clearly, or I would've realized that all I had to do was put the kids in a bedroom and shut the door! All I could think about was one of us being bitten by a rabid bat.

At one point, I hit the kitchen on a return lap of panic and saw Dad with a flyswatter. He had the bat down to the floor, "whop whop whopping" it with a flyswatter. But soon the bat escaped and continued his flight back and forth through the house. My brave husband didn't move from his horizontal position the entire time. No show of fear, excitement, or anything. Just typical Leroy.

Thankfully, the bat finally flew out onto the enclosed back porch. Still in my unthinking state, I hurried to the sliding glass door between the kitchen and the back porch, slid the door shut, and locked it--like the bat had the ability to open the door and come back in! Thank God...now he was on the back porch where he couldn't get any of us. Then we heard a frenzied knocking from the other side of the sliding glass door. It was Mom! I had locked the bat and her on the porch! I didn't know if Mom had found a hiding spot out there, or what. But it turned out to be the worst spot in the house to take refuge once the bat was there and I locked her out.

We got Mom back inside and Dad went to the back porch, eventually getting the bat outside. Then it was time to take a deep breath and laugh. My son told us that he knew vampires weren't real, but that also encompassed bats--since bats turn into vampires and vampires turn into bats. Bats weren't real because vampires weren't real--until that night. When he saw the bat, he was forced into a swift paradigm shift. He now had to believe that bats were real, and therefore vampires were real too. And he thought that bat would turn into a blood-sucking vampire at any time.

...and I must've watched too many episodes of "Dark Shadows" when I was in high school.

Afternote...my sister remembers this a little differently than I do, and I must admit she's probably correct. She said her husband (now her ex) was there and I was climbing his back. I don't recall him being there, but I've been trying to forget that chucklehead for years. She also said I wasn't grabbing the kids to try to take them to safety, but only thinking of myself. I guess that's what hysteria does to a person!