invasion

We've had an invasion. The winged varmints are again back in our house.

Bats.

As I write this the Critter Control guy is installing screens on the inside of our chimneys.

We've had two this August, and that's two too many for Shawn. He's absolutely horrified by bats. When we were dating he pretended he wasn't afraid of them, that he was all macho and manly and able to rid the premises of the flying vermin.

Well, that was a lie.

When I was 8 months pregnant there was a bat snoozing on our foundation by our back stairs. Not sick, not dangerous. Just snoozing. Thinking I'd married this amazing bat-catcher, I asked him to take care of it and get it off the house. You know, since I was pregnant and all.

I came outside 20 minutes later to find Shawn standing there with a bucket in his hand, quivering, trying to work up the nerve to put the bucket over this bat and haul him off to the bushes.

To make a long story short, Shawn generally hides in another room with a tennis racket shouting encouraging statements my way until I lose my own nerve and call my father to deal with it.

"Good job honey."
"Yeah, that's it."
"Keep doing what you're doing."
"Why don't you call your dad?"

Where is this leading and what does it have to do with Andy?

Two nights ago our second bat arrived. Bat No. 1 showed up after Andy was asleep, so he missed the screeching and hollering and wild waving of tennis racket and broom. But this time he and Shawn were playing in his room before bed when the Beast showed up. I quickly was able to shut the bat in our computer room and it fluttered around and around and around, crashing into things, hanging on my drapes, and sometimes crawling across the floor like a tarantula.

I had no choice but to be the man and deal with the intruder myself. Shawn went into panic mode and promptly wet himself. I mustered my courage and covered my head with a towel and went crawling into the computer room on my belly and opened the screen so the bat would fly out. As I made my way back to the door and shut it behind myself, I heard the screen slam shut. It's an old house. Things are loose. Dammit, I thought.

We did come up with another approach which involved Shawn going out onto the roof and punching in the screen from the outside (and then running away). It was a lot of huffing and puffing and squealing and climbing and terror.

And through it all, Andy was running around in circles, or sitting in his father's arms shouting, "Come 'ere batty! Come 'ere batty! Come 'ere batty!"

Perhaps next time we'll let Andy deal with it.