Bats in my Belfry

One morning several weeks ago, while Lee was out of town, I woke up and went on a small tidying spree.  The stuff piled up in the hall was getting on my nerves, so I carried it all up into the attic (this is my idea of tidying–shove the junk somewhere I can’t see it).  A few minutes later, while I was making my morning cup of tea, I noticed that my right hand was itching like crazy, as occasionally happens.  Later, juicing a lemon, I noticed that there were several very tiny wounds on my hand (don’t you just love how lemon juice notifies you of these things?).  Time to trim the fingernails.

That night I saw a piece on our local news about bat colonies being found in summer camp cabins.  The point of the story was that sometimes people can be bitten by bats and not even notice.  Hmm.  I scratched at my right index finger, and started googling.

A few minutes later, I went to Toby’s room and informed him that I thought maybe I’d been bitten by a bat.  I showed him the tiny, pinpoint-sized dot on my finger.  He looked at my finger, then looked me in the eye and told me I was insane.  I pointed out that this was not news, and that ordinarily I dump my crazy on Lee, but with him out of town, and Toby growing up, well, he’s old enough to deal with my crazy now.  He just rolled his eyes.

Needless to say, I didn’t get rabies.  I hadn’t been bitten by a bat.  We don’t have bats. (I know, because I went up with a flashlight and examined the rafters very thoroughly.  Possibly more than once.)  I did learn an important fact, which is now firmly implanted in my brain:  once you have rabies symptoms, it’s too late.  It is a fatal disease.

About a week later, a woman I talk to on Twitter woke up to find a bat flying around in her bedroom.  Apparently this happens more often than I realized.  Hunh.  Anyway, here’s the thing–because a bat bite can be so tiny and unnoticeable, they can bite you in your sleep and you might not even know it.  So if you wake up and there’s one flying around in your bedroom, you have to get the rabies shots.  Who knew?  This friend of mine has to go for three rounds of shots–6 at the first visit.  Ouch.  But better than dying of rabies.

We chatted back and forth about it–I suggested that 6 shots in one morning warranted chocolate, vodka, AND a new pair of shoes.  She agreed.  SIX?  That can’t be fun.

A few days later, Lee and Delaney and I were back up in the mountains, and they wanted to go rafting on the Nantahala.  I, having whacked my head on a rock last time I went rafting, decided to go for a hike while they were on the river.  We were at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, where the Appalachian Trail runs right through the parking lot, so that was a no-brainer.  Change into hiking clothes, and start walking north.  Excellent plan.

I walked into the changing room–the secondary changing room, at the back of the auxiliary parking area–with my gear, and started stripping down.  I noted the spacious stalls, the fact that the floor was nice and dry, and that there was no one else there.  Delaney would be pleased to have such a nice space to change in after rafting.  I took off my shirt.  I heard a squeaking sound, and looked around, hoping there wasn’t a mouse.  I noticed a lot of cobwebs.  Hm.  Delaney might not be so pleased, after all.  I took off my bra.  There was that squeaking sound again; where could it be coming from?

Wearing nothing but shorts and flip-flops, I started looking in the other stalls, wondering if there was a bird that couldn’t find its way out through the opening between the walls and roof.  It was a chattering, shrill squeaking, like I was being chided.  Finally, I saw a swooping blur in my peripheral vision, and it dawned on me:  it was a bat.  And it was pissed.  At me.

It darted around above the stalls, back and forth, clearly annoyed at having its afternoon nap disturbed, while I crouched in a corner, trying to struggle into my jogbra while making myself as small a target as possible.  Then I grabbed my shirt and took off like, well, like a bat out of hell.

I ran into the parking lot flailing the shirt around my head.  It wasn’t until I was out in the bright sunshine, away from that dark changing room, that I pulled the shirt over my head (after shoving my arms through the neck hole in my panic).

I stood there, heart racing, trying to figure out what to do.  There was NO WAY I was going back in there.  But I had left my clothes.  There were plenty of people in the parking lot (of course there were–I had just practically gone streaking in the parking lot, so you know it was full-to-capacity), but none of them seemed to be employees, or bat-removal specialists.  So I looked around, found the nearest building that looked like it had a proper roof, and marched in.

It was the call center, filled with office-type people who will book your rafting trip when you call to make a reservation.  So friendly.  But not really bat-wranglers.  But did I care?  I did not.  I stood in the middle of the room, looking, I’m sure, completely deranged and possibly dangerous, until an elderly secretary-looking woman asked if she could help.  I explained that there was an extremely angry and dangerous bat that had gone on a murderous rampage in the changing room.  She nodded patiently.

“How can we help you?”

“Well, I left my things in there.”

“Yes?”

“Um, I need someone to go in and get them for me.”

“You need someone to go into the changing room and get your things?”

“Um, yes, please.”

So a younger woman gets up and says she’ll do it.  She’s about 25, maybe, and weighs about, say, 250 pounds.  She also seems to have a physical disability; she has trouble walking.  I follow her out the door.  We get to the stone steps that I had bounded up in my search for a rescuer, and I mumbled something apologetic about pulling her away from her work.  She brushed me off cheerily.

“Oh, it’s no problem.  I’m just slow-moving, that’s all.  These steps are a little hard for me.  But I don’t mind.”

At this point, I’m fairly certain I’m going to be struck by a freak bolt of lightning, any minute now.  But she limps along, and when we get to the changing rooms, she heads in without hesitating.  I wait, bracing for her screams of pain and terror, knowing the psychotic bat is just waiting to attack.

But no–she comes out, hands over my bag with a smile, and hobbles back to her office.

That’s all.  No moral, no lesson.  Just a tale for your Monday afternoon.