Dear Neighbor,
There’s a true-crime program called “How Not to Hire a Hitman,” which I’ve never seen, but I imagine it involves a lot of sloppy decision-making. In this vein, I feel qualified to pitch a show called “How Not to Deal With a Bat.”
Step 1: Identify the bat as a bat.
Since I entered my 60s, coinciding with a bout of shingles in my right eye, I’ve been seeing things. I’d go to stomp on a scampering bug only to discover there was nothing there. Dust rained from the ceiling, nonexistent people walked outside, water dripped from a faucet that didn’t leak.
I thought I was losing my mind and mentioned this to my steadfast ophthalmologist. She waved off my concerns as PVD (posterior vitreous detachment), aka “floaters,” microscopic clumps of collagen that form and cast shadows on the retina. She added that it was due more to my age than to shingles. I wasn’t losing my mind, just my youth.
When I saw a black fluttering creature one recent morning, I wrote it off as a floater and went on with my day. To confirm my diagnosis, I recalled the empiricist philosopher David Hume, who dismissed miracles on the grounds of likelihood: Did she really fly across the room, or was she lying? I guess miracles do occur.
Step 2: If it looks like a bat ...
Later that afternoon, reality returned (my kingdom for a floater!). A bat! My first bat in 30 years of living here.
Step 3: Be prepared.
When I was growing up on the farm, bats were frequent intruders. Since nobody played tennis, my mother bought a racket for the sole purpose of bat control. I can still see my dad wielding that racket with all the determination of John McEnroe, whacking madly until the bat was stunned into submission and heaved outside.
Not owning this important tool, I decided that chemicals would do the trick. I could have sworn I had a can of Raid, but I couldn’t find it, or any other aerosol besides an ancient can of Static Guard. It worked to the degree that Mr. Bat didn’t like it and slowed down. I sprayed him some more, and he alit atop a bookcase in my office, where I hoped he’d die a quick and painless death. You may call it cruel; I call it Stand Your Ground.
Step 4: Summon your inner gangsta.
That night, my daughter Daisy came by for dinner after work. We were FaceTiming with Lily in New York when the bat reappeared like Lazarus in pterodactyl form. The girls freaked out; I grabbed my can of Static Guard and went into battle. Lily screamed, “Mom’s a badass!” Compliments from Caesar.
Step 5: Don’t poke the bat.
Mr. Bat flew into the living room and nestled into an upper corner above the piano. I continued to spray him, more concerned about the wood’s finish than about the bat. I prodded him with a fireplace poker, and he flew furiously at me and then, inches from my face, gave out, dropping to the middle of the living room floor. I sequestered him under a mesh picnic dome and placed a heavy bowl on top to prevent any chance of escape.
Step 6: Cost-Benefit Analysis
Meanwhile, Daisy was on the phone with Animal Control, which was closed, and left a message. The next day, Andy from Animal Control stopped by while I was out and left a sticky paper I didn’t understand. I called Andy and asked what to do with it. He told me to slap the sticky side on the bat to trap it. “Then what?” I asked. “Stomp on it,” was his reply. He said he could come back to do the deed. I asked how much it would cost: $350 was the quoted price.
The $350 wasn’t so much a stomping fee as the cost of rabies testing. I asked Andy about the chances of rabies, and he said, “approximately 0.0%,” adding that in the last year there had been zero cases of rabid bats in this area. He continued, “Most bats are born in the spring, and by late summer they’re like Amish teenagers on Rumspringa,” the period when they’re allowed to explore the non-Amish world, sow their oats and decide whether to return or transition into the modern world and risk being shunned. Or, in this case, be held captive under a picnic mesh. I passed.
Step 7: Know when to call it.
You don’t have to be the county coroner to certify a bat’s expiry. Mr. Bat lay lifeless under the mesh for two weeks before I was confident enough to enshroud him in a paper towel and bury him in the trash, after which I washed my hands like a surgeon prepping for a heart transplant.
Step 8: Be proactive.
If you don’t already have one, ask Santa for a tennis racket.
— Dorothy
Dorothy Richmond writes for the Hill & Lake Press. She lives in Cedar-Isles-Dean.
