Slaying Dragons

I grew-up in a house full of all sorts of dragons.  I am not afraid of dragons.  What I'm afraid of is Bats (and closets and basements and the dark but this is my 2¢ on bats.)

When I first moved into this house in 1996 there seemed to be a bat a week.  I had a good neighbor who came and caught a few.  Then he stopped.  So I enlisted my two dogs and Miss Marple (my cat back then) to form a team of bat chasers complete with a racket, a fishing net and a very wide and heavy broom.  Bat in the house?  We'd prop open a door, corral the darn thing into that part of the house and if need be, use a broom as a baseball bat and WHAM! right outta the park!  The dogs always came back into the house and Miss Marple was afraid of outside.  It wasn't pretty and would sometimes take hours but it worked.

By the time Dad came to live with me in this house there were fewer bats because of several visits by the pest people, some caulking, shoring up etc.  And if there was a bat? Well, I turned that chore over to Dad.  He was a great bat catcher, once using a hand towel to flick a bat out of mid-air and stun it so he could scoop it up and toss it outside.  Impressive.

Eventually, there were no more bats. I figured I had found all their entry spots and that was that for the bats.  The dogs  died of old age and one morning Miss Marple who had never ventured outside decided to leave home and never come back. And then Dad died.

Fast forward to 2012 and I am back in my home which has new siding, gutters, soffits -- the house is pretty shored up.   I don't have a tennis racket or a net (I passed up on a great FREE butterfly net the other week and regret it dearly).  And the broom?  Pretty wimpy. The only pet I have is Sassy, a great escape artist.  Let her even glimpse daylight and she is GONE!

At 12:30 this mornig I decided to stop quilting for the night, brush my teeth and get ready for bed.  As I left the downstairs half-bath I saw it.  Waist high right next to me.  Hanging on the window sheers.  A bat.  A HUGE bat.  Much bigger than the ones I had ever seen in this house in the old days. 

I called Drew for advice.  I couldn't picture what he was telling me.  I went to YouTube and watched a cajillion videos.  All along saying outloud "you are NOT scared of bats.  you are NOT scared of bats." Convincing no one,  I called sister who I knew would be up this time of morning.  She told me "You are a BIG DAWG!  You can do this!"  A great pep talk.  

I created a bat catching crate.  One cat crate door removed.  Put a plastic trash bag inside and taped the edges on the outer mouth of it.  Cut a piece of stiff cardboard bigger than the mouth of the cat crate.  Practiced my maneuvers a few times against the wall.  Continually telling myself "you are NOT afraid of bats.  You are a BIG DAWG!" Sister said it sounded too complicated and I should just throw a towel over it and scoop it up.  WHAT???  Get THAT CLOSE TO IT?  Then have to wash that towel several times in hot water or throw it away?  Right.  Back to the crate idea.

I put sister on speaker phone, put the phone in my pocket, plopped my orange baseball cap on for additional courage, stepped into the hall closing the door behind me.  I do not want Sassy attacked by a bat as its time for her shots and the coffers are bare. 

I took a deep breath, sent up a quick prayer and whispered to sister "ready" then slammed that crate against the sheers and the window.  The bat flew into the crate fighting against the trash bag.  I slid the cardboard between the sheer and the crate and held it tight to the opening. 

It is at this point I realized a few problems with the plan.  How could I open the hall door, much less the outside door without a) letting go of the cardboard lid and/or crate and b) without letting Sassy outside?

I balanced the crate on its backside against me (bat flapping wildly in the plastic - I really thought the plastic wouldn't give it any moving room), clasped the cardboard lid on the top of it tight and opened the hall door knowing Sassy would run into the hall.  I scooted in the sitting room and pulled the hall door shut with my foot.  Sassy was now locked in the hallway!! WOO HOO!  One problem down, one to go.  How to get the door deadbolt undone as it is so stiff it usually requires both hands?? 

I leaned the crate against the kitchen wall next to the door.  Kept one had firmly on the cardboard lid and tried the door.  DANG!  Stiff to turn. Would take both hands.  I am now swearing so bad the  kitchen takes on a whole new meaning of "painted blue" and my Uncle and Dad would've been shocked I knew that many swear words. 

At this point sister starts to get worried but I just focus.  How to keep the bat in the crate while letting go to use both hands?  And so, balancing the back of the crate between me and the wall (lid of crate against the wall -- bat really freaking out and me muttering "you are NOT afraid of bats.  You are a BIG DAWG" and hearing sister chatting away in my pocket), I reach over with both hands and release the deadbolt. 

I snatch the crate and out onto the rainy deck we go.  I push the crate up against the railing on the deck and go back inside.  I lock the deadbolt with both hands then walk to the fridge and write a note "WD40 the locks."  Pour myself a glass of wine and reach for my phone to give sister a play-by-play of what had happened. 

That really is one big bat.  There are big cats that roam the neighborhood.  I'll go out in the morning and if the bat is still in the crate, I'll figure out a way to release it then prep the crate in case I need it again soon.

I was a BIG DAWG!  I caught a bat and got it outside without any harm to me, the cat or the house.

And I learned a lot of stuff:

1) YouTube has some great instructional videos and I now know what Drew was telling me to do
2) next time, spray the trash bag liner with a bit of vegetable spray around the opening to slow the bat down from trying to crawl out
3) WD40 the doors and have them unlocked and ready to roll!
4) I need to locate a fishing or butterfly net and a tennis racket as a back-up plan
5) I am a BIG DAWG! (even if I do have to have sister on the speakerphone)
6) I am still afraid of bats but now I know one way to fight back

Maybe I'll tackle the basement next.  Then again, I think I better just finish my glass of wine and call it a night.

One dragon at a time is about all the excitement I can handle right now.

G'night.