So, I'm sitting in the nursery quietly rocking Isabel to sleep. Pixie is on the ottoman keeping my feet warm. All is calm, all is bright...
Suddenly, the Siamese tears ass across the nursery into our bedroom, leaps over the bed, hurdles the couch. Burst of energy to burn? Nope. I see the wings flapping wildly. Another bird in the house!
"Ha!" I smugly chuckle. Webhamster was wrong about the bird in our room last week, standing firm in his belief that it probably flew into the house when I was letting the dogs out (as if birds can sneak through a 32-inch wide doorway when you're standing in it). I had believed it had to have come through one of the fireplaces in our room--one of the decorative metal covers is loose--but I didn't argue.
I go upstairs to get Webhamster's help since I had the baby to watch. It's 10:30 and I feel badly because he's trying to sleep so that he can get into the office by 2:00 a.m. "There's another bird in our room! Can you please get it out of the house?"
He tells me to close the nursery door to keep it from flying in there. I hear him enter the room. Five seconds later he shouts, "Bat! Bat!"
It takes me a couple of seconds to process what he's saying. "You've gotta be f#%king kidding me! There's a bat in the house?!"
"Stay in there!"
It gets quiet again. I hear Webhamster go down to the basement and back upstairs. I'm nervous, thinking, "Is he okay? Is Pixie okay?"
What seems like half an hour goes by, but it's really about a minute and a half. Smack! Thud!
All is eerily quiet for about 6 seconds. I don't want to say anything because I don't want to distract him. I'm waiting breathlessly until I hear, "Cat! Cat! Get away!"
I know it's a downer then.
"Is everything okay?"
"It's dead."
"Are you sure? Be careful! Do you need me to get Pixie?"
"Backhand sent him flying at the nursery door about 80 miles per hour," he says, with a deflating sigh.
Once again, the sporting goods collection proves useful: fencing mask for face protection, tennis racket for swatting. I hope we never have to use the hockey stick.
I've used the fencing mask before when we had a starling problem at our first Louisville house. They're evil-eye birds. Once, I was baking creme brulee and I saw those beady eyes staring at me through the old exhaust fan opening. At least with birds, you can fairly safely shoo them out the house or grab them in a blanket and carry them outside for release.
"I'm sorry you had to kill it, but it could have been carrying rabies. It's the only thing you could have done."
I, too, feel badly about the little bat. It probably fell off its perch inside the chimney and got lost. What a way to go. Then I say, "Thank goodness for the cat! If it weren't for her, I'd have gone to sleep and woke with a damn bat on my face or something."
