How Not to Catch a Bat in Three Days

Day One, evening

It is dark when I get home. I am tired. I go into my office to check my email. I turn on the light and find a bat swooping through the room. Swoop swoop swoop.

Yes, I know bats eat insects and are harmless. I'm afraid of them anyway.

I shut the office door. I'll deal with the bat in the morning. In daylight the advantage will belong to me. I hope.

Day Two, morning

Armed with a broom and my Tupperware critter-trapper, I tiptoe up to the office door and press my ear against it. I hear nothing. I squeak the door open and peer through the crack. I see nothing swooping through the air. I open the door wider and look high on the walls, in corners, behind the blinds and pictures. Nothing. It looks like the bat is gone.

But I know it can't be gone because I don't believe in disappearing ghost bats.

I invite the two cats, including Mab the Mighty Hunter who has been known to bring down crows and squirrels, to check out the office. They come in, yawn, and Mab cleans her face. I call for my beagle Goody, hoping she will smell the bat. Goody wags her tail and asks to go for a walk. Clearly the animals know no more than I do about the bat's whereabouts. Or they don't care.

I sit at my desk. I wonder when and where the bat will appear. My peripheral vision is on alert. A surprise bat is much worse than a swooping bat. I feel like I'm in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I know the bat is here. It is lurking in a place no one would ever suspect - an innocent, everyday sort of place. As soon as I let down my guard and relax into my working day, I will move a piece of paper or something and - SWOOP!

I don't know how much work I will get done today. Suddenly it seems like a nice day to work in the garden, despite the rain.

Day Two, afternoon

The bat is still at large. I could not find it even when I shined a flashlight into every corner of the room.

It's starting to get dark. Soon it will be Bat Time. It will have to come out because it will be hungry. So I have made a plan. I take the screen off the office window and open the window as far as it will go. Turning off the lights, I leave the office and shut the door. Surely the bat will fly out on its own as soon as it gets dark.

Day 2, evening

It's been dark for some time now. I squeak open the office door and turn on the light. No bat. I breathe a sigh of relief. My plan has worked and the bat is now off enjoying a healthy dinner of mosquitoes.

I make a big mistake. I go into the living room to watch a little TV - leaving the office door open. All is peaceful for an hour but then, in the midst of Biography on A&E, the bat bursts into the living room, with two cats in hot pursuit.

Swoop swoop thunder crash. The bat flies over the dining room table and the cats follow, knocking the candles over. Luckily they're not alight. The bat flies into the living room and the cats skitter across a whatnot table with the whatnots hurtling after them. The bat swoops down the hallway, and the cats make amazing leaps and twirls that would qualify for Olympic Gold.

They are accompanied by a hysterical beagle, having the absolute time of her life and barking her head off. She hasn't the least idea of what they are chasing but it's a great game and she wishes we could do this every night.

Meanwhile I rush for my broom. I hold it aloft while chasing the bat/cats/beagle, ducking when the bat swoops toward me. I emit high pitched squeals which I don't seem to be able to control. This is not fun. If bats use echolocation, then it must know it is swooping straight at my head. Clearly it is OUT TO GET ME.

Finally, Mab the Mighty Hunter leaps at least five feet into the air and her claw connects with the bat. It sails into the bathroom and lands with a soft thud. It feebly twitches its strange webbed wings, then lies still. I think the bat has resigned itself to death. I put the broom down and get the Tupperware. I tiptoe up to the bat, bend over and position the container to trap it. Just when my face is inches away, the bat springs to life again and SWOOP off it goes down the hallway.

The crazy chase begins again. I open the front door and back door, with a vague idea of "herding" the bat outside. But bats are not herd animals so this does not work.

I give up. Evidently the bat has chosen this difficult way to die. Who am I to deny it its right to choose?

I shut all internal doors, close and lock the front door but leave the back door ajar. I leave the bat and cats in the front of the house, to their fate. I know this is the coward's way out, but I go to bed anyway, locking my bedroom door.

If burglars choose my house tonight, they will have deal with the bat.

Day 3, morning

I open my bedroom door and creep down the hallway into the kitchen. I steel myself to find a bat corpse on the floor. But no. No signs of a bat, not even guano. The cats are asleep on the sofa. There are no traces of blood on their whiskers.

I make another traipse through the house with the flashlight. I find nothing. Did the bat fly out the back door?

Maybe. Maybe not. I guess I'll find out tonight.