There's Bats in The Belfry

According to some around here, I left out one of the best parts of our Holiday weekend. I got four days off for the Christmas holiday, from Saturday thru Tuesday evening. On Saturday, we spent the day doing some last minute holiday shopping stuff. When we got home, I was sent out to the store to pick up something for a pie baking marathon the girls were involved in.

When I walked in the door, the dogs began to go a little crazy. Diane then put them away and let me know that I let a bat into the house. I am typically a fairly brave guy, with the exception of when I am faced with rodents. Once I opened the barbecue grill and was faced down by some nasty little swamp rat. I am surprised the neighbors didn't not call the police. Then there was that mouse in our kitchen when we lived in Safford. Fortunately, it could not get up on the counter.

Back to Saturday night: After I let out a couple of shrieks, I started looking for a broom. I had seen a boss of mine chase around a bat in his furniture store one time, so figured this was the best thing to use to deal with wayward bats. But, I had to settle for the collapsible dog crate to swat at the foul thing with. You see, many people may not know this, but rodents are trying to touch you. Those rat things want to jump on you, mice want to run up your leg and this bat wanted to land on me. I was not about to let it. I continued to swat at it furiously until Diane told me that, if I did hit it, she would be so mad at me. But I still wasn't about to let that thing land on or touch anyone.

Finally, it landed on the wall and Diane put a box over it and took it outside. She thought it was very cute, so I had to run to get the camera. Unfortunately, by the time I got the camera, the thing had flown off to terrorize someone else. That is why the picture is of a similar bat, but not the same one that tried to land on us. I do have some good spider pictures I got at Sabino Canyon. Spiders are mostly harmless, unless you sit on them or something like that.

In any case, there are those who thought that it should be shared that we had a bat in the house. There are also those that thought it was funny to ask my daughter who screamed the most and to see her point at me. But, history will vindicate me when my children face the world with the knowledge that their Dad kept a bat from landing on them.