Bat, man

It was a night like any other on Wednesday, when I heard Teak scampering around in the kitchen. I figured he had just found a toy or some insect or other, but I went in to check it out just to be sure. I looked down at Teak and saw nothing. Teak, on the other hand, was looking up in the air, and my eye just caught a glimpse of something flying across the room.

"Oh my god," I said to Kia. "It's a bird."

She came to the kitchen door. She then let out a little scream and a few cuss words and told me in no uncertain terms that I was not looking at a bird. No, it was a bat.

Armed with this new knowledge, both of us retreated to the furthest place in our apartment away from the kitchen, which turns out to be our sort of dining room/computer area two rooms away. All we can do is stand there and: a) wonder how the hell a bat got into our apartment; and b) try in vain to figure out a way to get the bat out of our apartment with minimal person-to-bat contact.

Do we have a net? No.

What about a pillow case? Would that work? Meh, it might, but it necessitates getting rather close to the bat.

Ok, we'll try to urge it out into the hallway, close the hallway door, and then open the front door and it will hopefully fly out.

Good. Meanwhile, the bat, likely more freaked out that it's in our apartment than we are, has continued to circle the kitchen, making occasional passes into the living room. Kia and I have armed ourselves with pillows, prepared to ward off the bat, should it veer blindly into our general comfort zone. The dogs are having a blast. Teak tracks the bat wildly from the floor, never getting aggressive, just following it like a good game hunting dog. Moose, on the other hand, gets up on his hind legs every time the bat flies low enough for him to attempt this. He snaps at it, and each time I think we're going to end up with a bunch of bat blood on the carpet and a little bat corpse to dispose of. Fortunately, Moose isn't very skilled at this game and his misses consistently. Fun to watch a huge dog try to do that, though.

Eventually, after many feeble attempts to keep the bat away from us, it disappears. It was like a horror movie, I kid you not. It's all intense and scary and then boom - no bad guy. Silence. Where's the bat? Where did he go? The dogs had been so good and vigilant the entire time in keeping track of it. Where could it possibly be? I have a feeling it's behind the couch. I move it a little. Nothing. I nudge the couch more insistently. Out it comes again. Newfound chaos. Dogs are tracking it again.

Finally, Kia comes up with the idea of opening the living room window with the hopes that the bat will swoop out. A few minutes later, it finds itself right on the window sill, and for the first time we can see its little body. The heart is beating incredibly fast. I almost feel bad for swatting it with my pillow. After the brief rest on the window sill, out it goes. I close the window quickly.

I can say we moved around the apartment a little more cautiously for the next few minutes. It really changes how you think about the place you live when you've got a bat swooping and circling through it. I have since been told that bats in Missouri don't strike or attack. Somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better.