Batman Returns--Dark Knight on a Dark Night

Last night was the second time we've had a bat in our house in the past year-and-a-half. Humor me while I regale you with this epic tale.

It was about 11:00 p.m. and I was en route from the bathroom to the bedroom. We had just transferred a sleeping Isabel from our bed to her own 30 minutes earlier. As I approached our bedroom from the hallway, I saw the the Webhamster army-crawling across the floor underneath a towel. At first, I thought that he was playing the cave game with Isabel and was irritated, thinking (1) she woke up and got out of bed and (2) he's playing with her instead of trying to get her back to sleep! Soon I realized he was moving toward the door and hoarsely whispering, "Stay out! Stay out!" He got out of the room and shut the door.

Then it hit me. "Is there a bat in there or something?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?" I asked, knowing how he had felt badly about how the last bat episode ended with him tossing the rumpled feather of a dead critter off the porch.

"The same thing I did last time."

So, he proceeded to the basement, grabbed an old fencing mask, two tennis rackets, and a jacket, headed into our bedroom, and closed the door. As I cowered behind a second door a few feet down the hallway, I heard him come out five minutes later.

He carried the little beastie between the two rackets and hurled it near the side of the house. I made him go back and retrieve it because I wanted to see it. This one was larger than the previous visitor, but still about the size of a mouse with a little leathery black blanket swaddling its soft furry body. I really felt sorry for the poor thing, but cringed at the thought of waking up in the middle of the night with it crawling on me, panicking, being bitten, and then undergoing a series of rabies shots.