We almost went bat-bleep crazy in 2020. Not from being isolated in the house too much. Or all the craziness in the world. But from something else possibly quarantining in our home—during the daylight hours, anyway.
I’ve always found bats really cool. Probably because of Batman. Even when COVID-19 hit, I didn’t fault them too much if they were truly to blame for spreading the virus as some have suggested. They’re just flying blind at night, minding their own business, and didn’t mean any of this to happen.
Plus, they eat thousands of mosquitos every evening. Bats are good. Unless they’re in your house.
If they’re in your house? Bats are bad. Not because it makes your house a haunted one. It’s from other scary stuff. And we had a fright.
It was dusk. We were out in the driveway, enjoying the cool evening when we saw something flitter overhead. Then another something. And another. Dropping from the round gable attic vent on our house. We were terrified. Not because they might turn into vampires. Or us into fellow un-deads. But because there might be a colony of bats roosting in our attic.
It had been a while since I was up there. The worst possible outcomes swarmed in my imagination of what they might be doing in the shadows above our heads. After a sleepless night, I waited for the bright-filled noon hour to investigate, when they would be sound asleep. Or should be.
As I stood on the ladder, waiting to lift the crawl space entrance above me, I had visions of that Aliens scene where the surviving space marines and Ripley poke their heads into a ceiling tile and (spoiler alert) see the monsters descending upon them. Then the noises at the beginning of the classic Scooby-Doo cartoon intro played in my head.
But as I carefully lifted the ceiling piece, trying to be brave in front of my boys who were holding the ladder and standing guard with tennis racquets to swat anything that might come swooping down, there was nothing. The beam of my flashlight captured only empty space and boxes of outgrown clothes, toys, and other items from those bat-bleep crazy toddler days.
There were no bats hanging from the rafters. Or lost boys. It was a false alarm. Further investigation revealed the soaring rodents had been hanging out just inside that attic vent, but on the other side of a (very) protective screen—outside of the house. We didn’t have our very own bat cave.
My wife was very relieved, though one of my boys was disappointed. Because bats are cool. An additional screen, some peppermint oil and some natural liquid fence kept them from coming back.
Not that we don’t want them around—I’d just prefer to be socially distanced from them. Much like the rest of the bat-bleep craziness from 2020.
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