Seriously, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’ve already read from the beginning…if not, you have no one to blame but yourself for being lost as to what this is “more” of!
No Word Of A Lie…
…because people really do ask me if I make this sh** up. I do not. And I would have traded this particular wild life adventure for a whole family of Stalking Moose & a cottage full of Ninja Racoons. With crummy weather & fresh memories of our last visit full of wild life, the kidlets had opted out of any campfires, preferring the dry safety of the cottage for our evening fun. Our week was pretty uneventful, even a little boring given the lack of hot, sunny weather. On what turned out to be our last night there, partly due to this “incident”, we suddenly had a little too much excitement. It was a scene right out of “The Great Outdoors”. The cottage is one big room, with the kitchen at one end leading to an enclosed porch that has a door to the outside. The end with the living area has 2 bedrooms & the bathroom along one wall, while the opposite wall has windows overlooking the lake & another door to the outside. Since this door leads to a very long drop off a cliff down to the lake, it is rarely used in favour of the porch door off the side. Dusk had fallen & I was admiring the sunset…so much so, that I was moved to open this door & snap off some photos. The Diva stepped out with me, & before I had even raised my camera, I hear The Boy, ever so calmly from his chair where he’d been reading, say, “That’s a bat.”. Not one of us four girls had any response to that initial statement…The Boy who cried bear, racoon, moose, & any other nature of creature he could think of, merely to frighten & torment his sisters, was not always to be believed. Aside from that, we had already noted bats swooping around outside at dusk, this was nothing new. Then he said it again. Then my oldest daughter screamed. Then I hollered, “INSIDE??!!”, & he again, very calmly, replied yes. I go flying in, telling The Diva to stay put & the other two girls to go shut themselves in my bedroom. All three girls are now screaming & crying, with The Baby near hysterics. Then I see it swooping around the room, & as it turns out, I really really really really really don’t like bats. Who’da thunk. Now I too am screaming. The Boy is laughing, as he goes around closing doors to keep it
in the main area, & The Diva is alone outside, in the dark, at the top of a cliff…screaming & crying. I run back outside, scoop her up, & go around to the other door to deposit her in the enclosed porch. I can hear The Baby crying for Mommy, & The Boy yelling at everyone to calm down. I am once again faced with the Ninja Racoon quandry…I’m loathe to have to go out there now that I’m in the relative safety of the porch, but I’ve left my son to fend for himself against a rabid creature of the night. Sh**. FML.
Bat Sh** Crazy…
With all the screaming, crying girls wildly running around waving their arms in full blown panic mode, my mind actually did flash on that scene from “The Great Outdoors”. And it gave me an idea. Being that I was on the porch, I grabbed two hoodies, & two canoe paddles. I slipped in to the kitchen, closing The Diva in the porch, & The Boy & I huddled together tying our hoods so tight that only our eye bobs were showing. Admittedly, I was completely unable to control my own shrieks every time it swooped in my direction, but my son, God bless him, was truly a man…even if he did keep laughing at me…though I suppose that simply added to his new found macho man status. Meanwhile, The Diva has her tear streaked face pressed up against the window from the porch in to the kitchen begging me to take her to her sisters, so once again I scoop her up & do a kamikaze run shielding her with my body, to shove her in with her sisters. The Baby is still crying for me, & my oldest girl is hollering, “Someone had better be filming this!”. She had a point…as horrific as it was, it was also pretty comical…& ya gotta know I need proof of my Griswold adventures for those who just don’t believe this crap happens to me on a regular basis. Throughout the chaos, this frikkin’ bat is just swooping circles around the cabin, ignoring the wide open door & the darkness beckoning from beyond. For whatever reason, his pea sized little bat sh** crazy brain was also avoiding the kitchen area, & despite my motherly instincts screaming at me to protect my babies, I found myself rooted in fear, crouched in the kitchen…too scared to even stand up, afraid of making myself an easier target for the swooping. The Boy? Chasing it around at top speed, waving his canoe paddle (a paddle for a bat & a bat for a ball??!!) while very quietly & soothingly suggesting ways of how “we” could get it outside. We also had a brief discussion about simply giving it a good whack with the paddle, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t quite ready for his 
first kill, nor was I, so we continued to chase it, waiting for it to find the damn door. After almost an hour of this, with the two of us waving & throwing anything that wasn’t nailed down at the spawn of Satan, it suddenly disappeared. Since I myself had spent that hour with my eyes squeezed shut, crunched in a little ball crawling along the walls, with my video camera randomly rolling in one clenched hand & a canoe paddle in the other, I had no idea where it went. As I pleaded with my son to just tell me it had FINALLY flew out the door, the smirk on his face told me otherwise. He pointed out the corner it flew in to, & I determined it had likely squeezed up beside the stove pipe in to the ceiling…frik.
A Brief Respite…
By now, The Baby had cried herself to sleep & I was at a loss as to how we should proceed. After poking around checking out the ceiling with a flashlight, I tried to reassure the kids that it had probably found a way out through the roof. Now if only I believed that! Eventually we began to relax, & even I half believed it had found it’s way out. We spent the next two hours playing charades & goofing around, & finally I began tucking kidlets in to bed. The Boy & I debated whether their door should be kept open or shut…if it was in the ceiling, I could see openings that would allow it to get in to their room, with him in the top bunk mere inches from said ceiling. But if it flew out in to the main room again, it was preferable to have their door closed. We settled on closed. With the three big kids drifting off, I climbed in to my bed beside The Baby & threw a DVD on my portable player to ward off that overwhelming blanket of darkness that descends in such a place. There was no comfort to be had in the dark tonight! For some bat sh** crazy reason, I kept my door open. My sense of responsibility to both my kids & the cottage had me feeling as though I couldn’t allow this horrid creature the luxury of dwelling within, & I needed to know if it was still “hanging” around. Somehow I had already forgotten that I had been in a full blown panic attack during my first encounter, & apparently thought I would be capable of dealing with it should it return. I was not. Mere moments after hitting play on my DVD, I was swooped…& I lost my sh**. Screaming, I whipped the covers over my head even as I was rolling to scoop The Baby under me & protect her…who, of course, I had awakened…& likely traumatized for life. We’ll just file that under emotionally scarring…for both of us. Now we’re both screaming, the bat’s swooping, & The Boy can’t hear me because their door is closed, & he’s got his iPod headphones on. But I can’t seem to force myself to move…’cause ya know, I gotta protect The Baby…so I just keep screaming his name, having gone absolutely bat sh** crazy by now. Finally the girls hear me & I holler for The Boy to turn on all the lights & make sure it’s not in my room before I can make my legs move & dart out of bed. As I shut The Baby in, she screams in terror at being left alone, so the other girls make a break for it & join her. And here we are again, a basketcase, a boy, & a bat.
Round 2…
…& suddenly it’s gone, back up in to it’s hidey hole. We take this opportunity to come up with our rather elaborate plan of attack…we now know we can lure it out by turning off all the lights, so we decide to do exactly that. Once it appeared, we’d hit the lights, with one pointed right at the stove pipe to keep it from going back up, while leaving the kitchen dark to lure it in to the enclosed porch. Then we could slam the door between the kitchen & the porch, locking it in there, go out the other door & around to the side door, open that up, & cross our fingers it would fly outside. And if it didn’t, at least it was in the porch & not any of the living areas anymore! Plan in place, we once again “suit up” with hoodies drawn tight, paddles in hand, & towels nearby in case it landed long enough to toss one over it. Then we sit in the dark & wait, each of us with our fingers wrapped around a light switch. The winged devil bided his time, but finally, after about half an hour, I saw it swooping towards me…& lost my sh**. I hit my switch, he hit his, & I’m immediately on the floor…no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t allow myself to get within “swooping” range. I head for the stove
pipe, & all I can muster up in the way of help is to crouch there beside it, banging my paddle against the hollow metal to keep the vermin away from his hidey hole. My hero, my son, jumped in to action, trying to herd it towards the kitchen & porch. Trying. With absolutely no success whatsoever. Since I’m a quivering mess on the floor with my eyes squeezed shut & my paddle banging away, I missed what came next. But suddenly my awesome little man was quietly telling me it was alright, he got it, take a deep breath Mom, & open your eyes, I need your help now. At least I think that’s what he said, I couldn’t quite hear him over my metal banging. I open my eyes, & he has the bat pinned to the floor with his paddle. He tells me he knocked him with it & stunned him enough to make him drop, but he’s alive & could I please get a towel to toss over it. I toss a towel over the bat, & now The Boy & are looking at each other in stunned silence. I finally pipe up & tell him we need to scoop it up in the towel & toss it outside. He agrees. We continue to stand there looking at each other. Then he says he’ll do it, & I say no, I can’t let him do it, I just need a minute to gather my courage. We throw a second towel on him, but still I struggle. He says he’ll do it. I say no, it could still bite you, I can’t let that happen. I poke through the closet for work gloves, but no luck. We both start pulling our sleeves down over our hands, & discuss the best method of scooping the bundle. I still can’t seem to take action, & he moves towards the pile on the floor. Again, I tell him no, take a deep breath, &…I’m struck with a brilliant idea! The front door is only a few feet away, all we need to do is use the paddle to push the bundle to the door & shove it out! Better yet, I’m okay with him doing it. And that’s exactly what we did. Now that it was finally out the frikkin’ door, we were suddenly concerned for it’s well being…go figure. So off we go, out the side door, flashlights in hand, to head around front & ensure it had gotten itself out from under the towels. Once again using our handy dandy paddles, we flicked back the towels from a safe distance & were relieved to discover our spawn of satan was gone for good. It was now 3 a.m….& all three girls were now asleep in MY bed. FML.
A New Day Dawns…
…& I’m tired, stiff, & cranky as hell. Chasing bats all night & being crammed in a bed full of knobby little knees & elbows does not a happy Mommy make. Plus, it was pouring rain. Yay. I head out front to collect my towels & ensure there isn’t a dead bat lying there. There is not. However, in the light of day, I can clearly see blood all over my towels…bat blood. I never did tell my son. Clocking it with the paddle had been accidental, & I knew he’d felt bad. His relief at seeing it was still alive had been evident, & since it had managed to wander off somewhere, I didn’t see the need to tell him it had been hurt. Especially since he now had The Baby calling him a Super Hero, & the eternal gratitude of all the girls…especially his very proud, & apparently severely bat phobic, mother. A mother who had enough of the Griswold curse, the wild life, & the rain…so I packed it in a day early, knelt in fervent prayer for my truck to start, & headed back to Crazy Town. Turns out I prefer the Brink of Insanity to bat sh** crazy.
Signed,
The Mayor
*Be sure to join in the Friday fun & share the giggles with Mr. Linky! And forgive me this totally long ass post, absent my usual imagery…I’ve had 7 kids for the last 2 days straight, it is now 3 a.m. & I can still hear the boys whispering…I’m forgoing the imaging in favour of knocking some heads together & getting some sleep!
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