Another Turn At Bat

[Ridiculously Early] Morning Pages.

It's 12:45 am, and I've just poured myself a scotch. Neat.?

With a celebratory feeling of relief, I removed the baseball cap and let go of the fishing net and snow shovel I'd white-knuckled for the past four hours. ?

The cap, usually meant for the squeaky-clean sport of bases, was part of a makeshift hazmat for my version of running with a bat—the mammal.?

Earlier in the evening, my husband and I relished the dull torpor of the night before New Year's Eve. The most significant holiday gift is the invisible week of low expectations and variable hibernation. He was at the grill supervising the salmon, and I was setting a fork, knife, and subliminal intentions with a mind that could never shut down with the calendar.

It is possible that streaming dystopia to the extreme and the growing momentum about AI has me forging newly wired paths of creative rumination. In other words, I wished I was hallucinating. But there was no element of fantasy about the flying mouse traversing the living room. "Scott, there's another bat in the house."?"Ohh, SHIT." And much like the characters who have satirized the tribulations of home ownership and the married couples who gut through them with pure comedy, our twenty-two years and temperaments do, at times, mirror those of Ralph and Alice Kramden.

The furry acrobat was the largest to date. And though they are fellow mammals, try as I might, I fail to appreciate bats. Those who know me have rolled their eyes at my over-the-top affection for animals. When I see a bug, I will scoop it up gently and escort it out the window. If there is a cause that can part me with my money, it is usually related to something with four legs. Pigs, goats, calves, turtles, marmots, bears – even snakes all amaze me with their unique purpose and unrelatable coexistence. I feel a connection to adorable beasts that makes life a lot sweeter.

This helpless creature I knew meant no harm was loose in our house. Logically that seems all right. But when you're in the upstairs hallway and feel the tailwind of a big flying thing, the level-headed person hides behind the screaming nut who can't get a grip. I have no illusions about my wonderful, better half, but I heap the highest expectations on him in moments like this. "DO SOMETHING."?The poor guy.

I plated our dinner like a ninja while Scott was staked out in the guest room upstairs with the lights off and armed with a tennis racquet. I found it hard to fend off thoughts about the horrible confrontation, especially knowing he was a ranked player.??

Used to tackling tough jobs of all kinds and still feeling like asking for help is a sign of weakness, we attempt our best bat strategy for almost the entire night. There are better ways to end a year or begin a new one than being outwitted by a bat. So, I looked through my contacts and found the only Batman I'll ever need. A herpetologist named Chuck. Take THAT, Marvel. Our savior, Chuck, was at the house within the hour and stayed for three. My hero.

There were moments when I feared we might fail, and I began to catastrophize the next few days. Our plans for New Year's Eve and onward. How could we sleep knowing this winged and wild nocturnal stranger was about? Would I find him dead in my Doc Martins? But as luck would have it, Chuck was also nocturnal and insisted he'd contain the critter or at least do his best. Do his best? ["Oh no, we're f*cked"].?

But we weren't. Because of witchy intuition that hasn't failed me yet, we found our frightened pest enjoying the luxury accommodations of a vintage GUCCI tote in my home office that I knew was cozy and a haven to all, including this bat with exquisite taste. We saw him make a right into the room, and he had yet to come out. Nobody can resist an iconic Italian brand. ?

Good riddance, fancy bat.