"It is written that in the final year of the 2nd millenium, the flying death shall fall upon the land. There shall be one in all the lands who shall rise to face them, and lead the people into light." -- The Book of the Winged Doom
Friday, June 11th, 1999
So I'm having my roof redone. In the process of repairing it, they removed and sealed off my old chimney (long since closed off on the ground floor), and started removing the bricks from inside the house.
The night they did this, I arrived home, and saw what I thought was a bird flying crazily inside my house. It looked funny, and after staring at it, I realized it had to be a bat -- and I couldn't figure where my cats (who often bring in birds) had caught one.
I eventually managed to throw a sheet over the bat, and released it outside.
An hour later, a second bat started flying around. By now I was a bit confused (although one of my cats did bring in seven snakes in one day, so it's hardly unprecedented). After extracting this bat, I found out about the chimney work -- and found another bat in the shower. The tally thus far -- three bats.
Another hour later, and two more bats were flying crazily about. By then, I'd refined my sheet technique -- it turns out you can club bats right out of the air with a rolled up sheet, and toss them outside. They fly off, presumably a bit ticked off, but right as rain. Even after bouncing them off a wall with a backhand. By 11:30, when I was ready to turn in, I'd evicted yet another pair of bats -- for a total of 9.
I needed to get an early day in, so I really wanted to sleep. By midnight, I could hear a bat flying around and "peeping", and decided to ignore it. By 12:30, I realized I couldn't, and turned on the light. To behold, in all their nocturnal glory, FIVE bats looping around my ceiling fan. My normally fierce cats were nowhere to be seen -- save for the brave 20 pound white one, who was poking his head out from under the desk. I suspect if cats could speak he'd have been raving about "signs of the Apocalypse".
So I seized my sheet in hand, uttered a mighty oath, and proceeded to do combat with the bats. A series of mighty strokes (including one bat that fell into and got stuck in my printer) and a very sore right arm later, all five were placed outside, whereupon they winged their way to freedom.
At 14 bats, I hoped I was done. To be sure, I taped newspaper over the hole in the chimney, and stayed up for a bit waching movies. At 3:30, I turned in again.
At 4:00, I gave up, turned on the light, and evicted what I believed to be the final bat from my house. I also went to turn on the ceiling fan, since it was hot -- and lo, the sixteenth bat (yes, I was keeping score -- confirmed "kills" on an index card) was there, hanging upside down from the ceiling fan like a Disney character. He tried to fly, was whumped like the rest, and joined his fuzzy brethren outside.
And that was the end of The Battle for 1443 Cal Young Young, final score: Russ - 16, Bats - 0. Although I do have to say I didn't wind up getting to sleep until 6 AM, which made my 10 AM work shift really interesting.
Cute little fuzzy brown guys. Glad I didn't permanently injure any of them.
"And after the chaos, one shall remain standing, and the felines of the world shall rejoice."