You must never visit my house, never.
We are a veritable zoo of unwanted small animals. Rambi's Rodent Resthome.
I don't think I mentioned the bat in my list last night. That was the worst; until then I had dealt with all of the invading wildlife with poise, confidence, even a certain admirable élan that I believe would have elicited appreciative murmurs from all of you here.
But the bat did me in. The presence of Dracula in my home one dark night was more than this stalwart veteran of Rodent Removal could handle. And my son was no help. We have both read too much Stephen King and Dean Koontz to be rational about an animal with fangs that can become Bela Lugosi while we sleep. We knew we were dealing with the supernatural because it was late on a dark and stormy night and the father protector was not at home. Probably the phone lines were down, but I didn't check.
Blue, one of our many disappearing cats, was sitting on the living room floor looking intently upwards when Ammo and I arrived home that night. We figured it was either a large moth or a bird, and heaved "oh no, not again" sighs, but when we turned the lights on we saw-- the thing. It was hanging from the molding, all folded up neatly, looking harmless.
We decided to try the bird trick of waving a broom and shouting magic incantations (Get out of the house NOW!) but when we opened the front door and tried to poke it with the handle, hoping it would take the hint, it suddenly unfolded its five foot span wings and red eyes glowing, fangs dripping with the blood of its last victims, (hopefully that of the neighbors whose teenagers threw trash in our yard), it flew up the stairs.
Now this was really bad.
"Maybe we should just go to bed and wait til Daddy gets home," I said nervously.
"Mommm, are you crazy? Don't you know about Dahhanavar, the vampire who sucks blood from feet? I'm not lying down tonight with that in the house."
"Well, what should we dooooo?" I hate to admit I was whining.
"I don't know. You're the mother."
We sat in the living room, holding a jar of garlic salt, until Dan came home. His attitude is always that I plan these things for nights he works late. He grabbed the broom, marched up the stairs, whacked the bat and called for the shoe box we keep on hand for carrying out stunned animals.
"Don't you want a wooden stake?" I shouted from the other side of the house.
Ammo was suddenly filled with courage and insisted on doing the honors. He wanted to see if it really had fangs, or maybe he was hoping it would transmogrify into Vincent Price while he watched. I chose to remain far away because I knew that if vampires could come back from the dead, they sure weren't going to be taken down by some middle-aged executive with a broom.
Buffy the Vampireslayer I'm not. |
