Mr. Battypants

Some days I have no idea what to blog about.

Then other days a subject is just hanging from the molding waiting to be discovered.

Today Lily and I were on the Cape visiting my dad and stepmom. Nana is a dollhouse artist and was showing us her latest creation, a spooky halloween house complete with spooky black tree with bats hanging from its gnarled branches. We were still looking at it when she left the room to make lunch. Lily and I were sitting on the bench snuggling when I noticed a bat decoration hanging from the molding at the ceiling.

"Look Lily! A spooky bat!" We giggled and pointed and pretended to be scared.

When Nana walked back into the room we continued, "Oh Nana, that bat is so scary!"

Then Nana's face got funny. It went from "Oh, aren't you two funny?" to "What the hell is that?" to "Dear God, there's a bat in the house!"

There was some shrieking.

We ran to tell my dad who was painting the trim on the house.

"There's a bat in the house!" We yelled, not even bothering to mask our hysteria.

"Bat! In! The! House!" we yelled.

Pepere was unperturbed. "I need to finish painting."

It quickly became apparent that Nana and I were on our own.

Where did Lily go?

Lily ran outside as fast as her little feet would carry her.

Nana and I devised a plan. She fetched a net.



She was not enjoying the bat. She wanted to put him in the Lord and Taylor bag, but we decided that a garbage bag that could be sealed might be better.

We studied our adversary.



He was asleep.



Also, he was pretty cute.

I know. But he's so furry! And he has cute ears!

I carefully put the net over his body and slowly pulled the net down.

He started to squeak and flap his wings and reader, I screamed like a girl. I'm not proud.

Our next maneuver required complete agility and perfect timing. We had to get the bat into the bag without letting him fly all over the house.

Using all of my grace I swooped Mr. Battypants into the garbage bag and taped up the end.

Some of my readers may be confused. Why the hell is she saving the bat? Just get it out of the house!

I'll tell you why. Because we needed to capture him and send him off to get his brain tested for rabies. If you can't capture the bat, or say you just shoo him outside, you end up like my dear friend Karen who spent the summer getting rabies shots with her family.

Once Mr. Battypants was captured, Nana got on the phone with the Department of Health who told her that they would send someone right away to fetch him.

That left me free to take pictures. And try to coax Lily back into the house.

Look at him.


I think the toes are adorable though the claw kind of freaks me out.

Then the nice Department of Health lady came by to take away Mr. Battypants. She left us this helpful information. Information about bat brains.



We hope to find out if he's rabid or not by tomorrow. And people, I really would prefer not to get rabies shots, so please send whatever non-rabies vibes you can or just send chocolate. Either one will do.

PS. You know what it bizarre? This is by second post about someone in our family possibly needing rabies shots. What are the odds?