We bought a fixer upper that may as well have been time capsuled in 1972. In addition to some groovy wallpaper, our house came with bees, bats, rats and birds. Even those things weren’t enough to deter us however, and after several months our house was in much better shape.
One night, the kids were in bed, windows were open, and hubs and I were watching tv. Suddenly, a bird was circling our living room ceiling! I squawked, “How do we get rid of a bird?!”
Hubs replied, “That’s not a bird. That’s a bat!”
My brain was in crazy mode and my body was utterly frozen. My thoughts were just as erratic as that bat’s flight pattern: How did the bat get in? How long has the bat been in the house? What does a bat eat? How do I identify a bat bite? Bats carry rabies, right? What if it bit one of the kids? Truly, I was spiraling.
Hubs wasn’t privy to these thoughts, but he definitely heard me say, “What if the kids get rabies?” He was attempting to hit a home run while standing on a bar stool with a broom. He stopped mid swing. I’m pretty sure I heard his eyes roll. Yet, his beautiful soul offered no criticism. Instead, he said he had the situation under control and advised me to cheer him on from a secure location: on the floor from underneath a quilt.
Bat still on the lose, I was thinking more clearly but not quite clearly enough.
From my secure little spot, I called Poison Control. Why? That’s a great question! Once we had passed the initial confusion that no one had actually ingested a bat, they offered no strategies for how to catch it. However, I was told to trap it in a zip lock bag, responsibly euthanize it in the freezer, and take it to my local Health Department for rabies testing.
This made so much sense. I reported to hubs.
The saintly man he is, he kept his comments to himself. Instead, he grabbed my quilt and with a net-throwing motion, tried to net the bat. About the fifth try, he, the quilt and the bat were in perfect position. I saw the quilt cover the bat, and gravity did it’s job.
Unfortunately, both the quilt and the bat fell on me.
I remember two things: someone screaming and the random flapping of a bat near my face. A lifetime later, hubs had rolled the quilt into a ball with the bat somewhere in its folds. I was shocked, sad and tired. Hubs held me for a while. Then, he took the quilted bat to a small closet and somehow trapped it in a bag. I didn’t ask.
It was then responsibly euthanized next to my ground beef.
We took it to the Health Department and were told our bat didn’t have rabies (of course it didn’t.) Hubs could have said so many things. However, all he said was, “Next bat, I’ll catch by myself.”
Sweet Hubs. I’m gonna go with that.
His gentleness towards me when I’m fragile (even if I’m the cause of my own mess) makes me feel loved. His gentleness can sooth my frazzled spirit and acts like a re-set button for my heart.
