Did I ever tell you that my mother hates mice? I mean she is terrified of the little creatures. Truthfully I think she has her Mother to blame for this fear since my grandmother, who was an extremely strong individual would leap onto a chair at the mere thought of a mouse, screeching. (Or so my Mom says.) So last Friday when Wayne, Z and I arrived we discovered something a bit shocking at the lake house. Mouse droppings. There were not many of them, but they were definitely there, and we quickly cleaned them up. Neither of us wanted my Mom to know that her sanctuary away from home had been defiled by the mice, for the first time in years. By the time she arrived, there were no signs left of the little critters.
To avoid an epidemic, I told my Dad about the droppings, and he spread some poison around the cottage. We all continued on until my mother started raving about how wonderful a job my Dad had done protecting the cottage from mice attacks in the recent years. I couldn't help it I started laughing. She immediately knew I was covering something so I tried to come up with a cover story...aka a lie, and instead ended up laughing at the things I was saying hysterically. Things like, "I did not see a mouse in the house." had me in tears, so my brother finally took me out of my misery and told my Mom the truth. She was a bit upset, but she was coping.
When we went to bed, Wayne and I choose to sleep in the main room, mostly because I hate sleeping in the same room as Z. I always wake up when he moves and he wakes up when we move...it is a bad combination. About 2 minutes after the lights went out, as Wayne was watching inning 14 of the Yankees/Red Sox's game, we saw movement overhead. Wayne turned to me and said, "What is that?" I looked up in horror. He continued, "It's a bat!" I stared in horror. Now I am not a wimp when it comes to wildlife, I've had my encounters, but I was seriously freaked about a bat flying a foot over my head. Wayne turned to me and said, "Your mother must never hear of this." and I responded with, "What are you going to do?" He said, "Smother it." Now I should explain that my Mom and Dad were in a room just feet away, my Dad was asleep, but my mother was still awake. All that separated us were French doors. I was not about to argue with Wayne's logic, but I was pretty concerned that he was going to get hurt somehow, I was also worried my dog would get bitten, so I grabbed Lennie and cowered at the end of the bed/futon. At first Wayne told me to open the sliding glass door, so we could chase the bat out, but after minutes of the futile chase, we realized it wasn't going to work. At one point we thought he'd got it out, so we turned on the light, but as soon as we turned them off again it started its freakish flight above us. I think this is when Wayne decided smother the bat he must. I watched for a few minutes as Wayne batted a blanket at the black creature disrupting our slumber, and felt my adrenaline start to course through me. The bat was making an eerie swooshing sound and a low cry, and it was then I decided I couldn't watch and took Lennie into the back bedroom where Zach lay sleeping. I only stayed in there for minutes, because I couldn't bear to leave Wayne alone to defend our cottage, so I closed the door and hovered watching the scene play out from the hallway.
Here is what I saw: After a few minutes of lifting a blanket in the air, Wayne pulled the quilt to the floor. He looked up and said, "I got it!" I wasn't sure what he was going to do with it, and to be honest I don't think he really knew at that moment. He later told me he could feel it start to move towards his leg, and so he did the unthinkable. He began to punch the blanket in an attempt to bludgeon the bat (Did I ever mention my husband was a Marine) and after a few moments I could see him turn to my Mom's room and say " Do not look in here, keep your eyes on the computer screen. Do not look in here, turn away." It wasn't until later that he realized she thought he had a mouse under there. A lot seemed to happen at once, it what can only be described in retrospect as one of the most humorous scenes I've witnessed. Wayne was pummeling the blanket, telling my Mom to look away, while my mother was yelling at my father, "Louie, wake up Wayne has something under the blanket!". My Dad groggily rousing his head to look at Wayne's fist flailing in the air punching the ground, and my Mom crying because she was so upset. At this point Wayne said, "Oh, my God, I think I got it!" and said, "Turn on the light!" I did only to discover that the bat was not under the blanket, stuck to the blanket or after a extensive hour long search conducted by my father and Wayne, in the cottage at all. At least not where we could find it. We were all frazzled, my father thought Wayne and I had hallucinated the bat, and my mother was shaken, but slightly relieved that it was a bat and not a mouse. In fact in the course of our search we discovered that the "mouse droppings" we had encountered were in fact bat droppings, which made us all feel slightly relieved. As we drifted to sleep, safely locked in the back bedroom with Z, Wayne told me, the bat was dead. He knew he had hit it, and that if it wasn't dead yet it would be soon. He assured me it was not in the cottage...so I slept, sort of.
The next night it was just my Mom and I and Z. We had a lovely dinner out at the Red Lobster. Both my Mom and I were anxious about what the evening would bring, but we tried to act like big girls. Here is a pic of Z and my Mom enjoying themselves before we headed back to the "Batcave"
Even though we were all smiles at dinner. That night as Z slept like only a baby can in troubled times, my mom and I sat in the main room watching a movie with every light in the cottage blazing. We were so on edge we actually took a wind catcher hitting the sliding glass door, to be the bat trying to get back into the house. We managed to make it through the evening and then headed off to bed, without seeing a single sign of the vanished bat.
On Sunday we celebrated my father's birthday as we all lamented what could have happened to the mysterious bat. Some claimed, it had never existed, others like myself thought it must have escaped like Houdini through the passage it had come in through, while Wayne asserted that wherever it was, it was very much dead/ injured. I must admit, I didn't like to think of it as injured especially because the whole time it was under the blanket it let out these awful shrieks. I even prayed for its soul that night...I know I am weird. The festivities went on. We opened presents. Dad got a Kindle from my mom and Wayne and I (Z and Matt too),and some great gifts from my sis and bro. We enjoyed a Coldstone Creamery Ice cream cake and a lot of laughs. Here are some pics from the day:
My Mom, Jack, My Dad, and Z by the lake
The boys bringing Papa his gifts
My Mom and My Dad- Note: The mess in the background is not our cottage. The neighbor was installing a new window.
The boys "helping" Papa blow out his candles.
My Dad making another wish: I hope it comes true Dad!
Shortly after all of the celebrations were over, the cake eaten and the gifts unwrapped, it was time to head home. I couldn't find Lennie's leash, so my Mom tried to help. What she found instead was a bat...flat as a pancake, beneath a rug in the main room. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture, even for the sake of the blog, but I am happy to report the mystery is solved. As for the bat's many brothers and sisters who were also living in the eaves of the cottage, they have been successfully blocked from entering. I can honestly say that the Batcave is officially closed, and I think I speak for all of us, that we are happy to have the cottage back to ourselves!
No comments:
Post a Comment