Holy disoriented flying rodents, Batman!

This weekend was wonderful, not least because the weather was well and truly springlike. Naturally, we threw open the doors and windows to get some of that lovely, warm spring air in the house. After a few months, “cozy” starts to feel like “stuffy.” Dr. T even swept off the back porch, and I toured the garden, relishing every tiny sprout of green. Who knows? Next weekend we might even rake up all the dead crap.
I took advantage of the weather on Saturday to walk from Dina’s place, with Dina, to our favourite fancy dress store (OK, our only fancy dress store), where I found a great dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding in two weeks. We walked back to her place, then I toddled off home to get supper ready for Irene and Dave & Kate. After supper, Kate got out her knitting and I whipped off a few more granny squares for the next baby blanket, and we got caught up ~ it’s been ages since we saw everyone.
Well-fed, well-wined, and content, we saw our guests off and crawled into bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.
Righteous, but not all that bright.
Now that Colin and Robert are nine and seven, respectively, they’re pretty good about getting up by themselves on weekend mornings, and heading downstairs. They eat cereal, and turn on the TV or the Nintendo in the basement, and Dr. T and I actually get to sleep in.
On Sunday, however, the boys woke us up because of the bird in the basement.
Remember when I said “we threw open the doors and windows to get some of that lovely, warm spring air in the house”? We neglected to close the balcony door in the office.
Now, those of you who have lived through similar experiences (or who pay attention to the post titles) know where this is going…
I headed down to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. So there I was, minding my own business, when the bat buzzed my head.
To my credit, I did not, at that point, shriek like a little girl.
I edged over to the back door, and opened it, talking calmly to the bat the whole time. Despite my reassurances, the bat chose to fly back to the basement, rather than through the open door. My soothing voice must have touched a chord, though, because once I was back upstairs, sitting in front of the computer, the bat followed me and started flying haphazardly around the room, getting pretty frickin close to my head with each pass.
At that point, I did shriek like a girl. I mean, it’s one thing to encounter a bat in your kitchen; it’s kind of disconcerting to be stalked by the bat.
After a few more heart-stopping minutes, the bat apparently exhausted itself and flew into the closet, otherwise known as the barely-contained stack of crap and old boxes. Armed with an old tennis racket (which had a really small head, but Dr. T refused to use one of our good rackets on bat control), I entered the fray, and found the bat huddled in an old box, which I gingerly pulled from the closet. I was almost at the balcony door when the bat jumped out of the box. I thought that all was lost, but rather than flying around again, the bat slumped on the floor, right in front of the door. I used the box and the racket to scoop up the bat, and actually managed to get him (or her ~ we didn’t get that close) out the door and onto the floor of the balcony.
Suffice it to say, we’re never opening our doors and windows again.