Mom versus a flying rat
I’m not sure why I’m the born loser or how disaster finds me whenever I let my guard down.
I guess it’s just my lot in life.
Over the years, I have become accustomed to being the matriarch of mayhem and misadventures.
It is my destiny. It is my albatross.
So it should have been no surprise when the latest crap-storm made landfall recently.
It had been a peaceful Saturday evening.
The kids weren’t fighting over the TV or who drank straight out of the jug of sweet tea in the fridge contaminating it with their cooties, and no one was searching frantically for their lost headphones.
It was just a peaceful evening at home.
Too peaceful.
A clear sign of disaster approaching.
I went to bed with the promise of a lovely Mother’s Day to look forward to.
Somewhere around the time I stopped tossing and turning and drifted off into drool-inducing sleep, I was ripped violently from my dreams of breakfast in bed and flung smack-dab into a horror flick, starring myself as the half-asleep heroine.
Kids #3 and 4 are awake and out of their beds. I recognize the sounds of their flat feet pounding on the hardwood floor as they make a mad dash for my bedroom. They hurdle through the air and land with a thud on my bed, burrowing under my blankets while screaming gibberish in unison at a decibel that could only be heard by dogs.
I made out the word “BAT!”
I was instantly alert, my heart was racing as I jumped out of bed and peered around the doorway into the living room.
Crap.
This is what nightmares are made of.
Whose idea was it to give a rat a pair of wings, razor-sharp fangs and unleash it on the world?
There it was gliding in circles around the dining room light fixture.
The split-second of appreciation for its impressive wingspan was quickly replaced by utter panic as it swooped into my room and back out again.
The kids squealed in terror and I stood frozen in fear.
In times like this, things can get out of control quickly.
It’s pandemonium.
There are no handbooks or manuals. That’s what mothers are for.
I pretend I know what I’m doing, but just like the bat, I’m winging it.
“I’m the adult,” I chanted inwardly, while outwardly I shuddered with the creepy crawlies.
I flipped my light switch on. Then the living room light.
I felt safe that it wouldn’t swoop back into the rooms with lights on, so with a towel wrapped turban-style around my head, and armed with the biggest frying pan I own, I set about the task of turning all the lights on.
I’m sure the bat was confused as to whether I would be telling its fortune or cooking it.
Now I know that bats eat insects and do more good than harm and blah, blah, blah — but when one is flying around your home, swooping over your children’s heads, none of that matters.
There is no way I’m touching that thing in any way except to swing this skillet and smack the living daylights out of it.
I had already opened the front door in a good faith attempt to allow it to leave peacefully.
It declined, and I swear I heard it laugh at me as it clung to my curtains with its grubby claws.
Those of you who doubt that this bat was most likely rabid, not to mention ginormous and most definitely bloodthirsty, should know that it had no interest whatsoever in the swarm of June bugs (who are sadly unaware that it is only May) bumping into each other outside the open front door.
Eventually, it flew up the stairs, slightly sideways to accommodate its 747 wingspan.
I slammed the door to the stairway behind it and then crammed a blanket in the space at the bottom, just in case it wanted to show off how it can fit through a hole the size of a quarter.
I’m feeling pretty accomplished and coax the kids out of my bed.
Problem solved.
Kid #3 immediately says, “I can’t live like this. We HAVE to move.”
She’s right. I can’t handle any more kids in my bed on a regular basis.
Now what?
Kid #2, also with a turban-wrapped head and armed with a frying pan, cracks the door to the stairs just enough to slide the pan in and use it to flip the light on.
There it is. We all shudder.
Hell-bat is perched on the blinds of the window at the top of the landing. His beady eyes are on us.
Kid #3, who has been filming what can only be considered a blackmail documentary the entire time, suggests we call the LEC because she’s already texted Kid #1 who says she’s “not coming home until that thing is gone!”
So apparently I’m not getting away with the solution of just trapping it upstairs.
Crap.
Here’s the thing, folks — it’s 2 a.m. on Mother’s Day Eve, every single light in the house is on and I didn’t do the dinner dishes because I KNEW that the kids would do them while I was at work as a show of appreciation for the mother who kept them alive another whole year.
What can I say? I’m thoughtful like that.
I have to be at work in four hours and now I have to do dishes before I call the police to come rescue us from the bat because my mother would be disappointed in me if I let someone in without the dishes done.
Just like she always told me to wear good underwear in case I was in a wreck.
So I dutifully did the dishes, unwrapped the towel from my head, put away my frying pan and pretended not to be a sleep-deprived crazy person while I waited for the cavalry to arrive.
I’m not saying he made it look easy — and maybe we overreacted and it was clear that he had undergone some sort of bat whisperer training — because 4.2 minutes later, the killer bat was escorted out the front door by the officer and set free.
The kids haven’t slept upstairs since due to the PTSD that is now plaguing them.
If you plan to stop by this house of horror, I suggest you make no sudden movements.
We are all a little on edge.
Stefanie Freeman is a Jefferson resident currently serving 18 to life as a mother of four.
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