While Bilbo gives himself cancer, I will tell you of the exciting events that just transpired here. I am staying up late working on a Father's Day column, and Ammo, who had come down to the kitchen, started hollering, "THere;s something in the house! THere's something in the house!"
Big deal. There's always something in this house.
"What is it? A mouse? A bird?"
"No- it's flying around and it's weird-- it's - oh shit- it's a bat!"
And sure enough, it was. Hanging from the living room ceiling. A real live bat. So we stood there and stared at it, not knowing what to do, and it suddenly took off around the room and started up the stairs.
"Should I get Dad?" Ammo asks.
"Well, better us get him than the bat, I guess. You're the horror movie specialist. You should know what to do with a bat."
"You wear garlic and wave a cross at it," Ammo says.
"Go get your father," I say, realizing that Ammo can only handle this if the bat tries to suck our necks.
"I'm not going up there!" THe bat is at the top of the stairs, just hanging there.
So we start screaming Dan! Dad! DAN! DAD! It takes a long time to wake him up. The HEPA filter makes a lot of noise and he's a champion sleeper.
He finally comes out and staggers down the stairs in these baggy madras Bermuda shorts, the first thing he grabbed from the dresser, I guess. I start laughing, which doesn't really help his mood. We all stand and stare upward for a while. Finally Dan goes and gets a broom and a shoebox. He marches up the stairs with Ammo lurking behind him, and I run and hide in the study. There's a thud, and then Ammo says, "Cool!"
Pause.
"Open the door, MOmm! QUick!" He has the box in front of him and they disappear together, boy, box and presumably bat, through the open door. When he returns, he says with great pride, "I put it in the box."
"You TOUCHED it? What if it has rabies!"
"Dad knocked it out with the broom and it feel down and just lay there, and I pushed it in."
"DId you look at it? COuld you see it's fangs?"
"Naw- I was afraid it was going to leap up and attach itself to my face like the Blob, so I didn't look." He and Dan are high-fiving. You can tell Dan feels pretty damn good about his batcatching technique. We're standing in the kitchen, discussing how a bat could have gotten in, when there's a lot of noise from out back. It seems the ducks are back and Myers is standing at the edge of the pool, all fluffed up and hissing at them.
We live in an expensive zoo. |
