Bat in the Machine
Yeah, I know, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I think I was sick over the holidays. Either that, or the family visiting wore me out so much I couldn't find the strength to do so anything but sloth for the rest of my time off. The Beard walked in here at one point and said "Jesus, your apartment's a mess." Considering that my (probably neurotic) need for order is one of the reasons we no longer live together, I was impressed he managed to say it without rancour. And it was no less than the truth.
In other news...
Once I thought I could live with bats. I found out this week I was kidding myself.
I hadn't done laundry since before Christmas, and here we were after New Year's. I take a load down to the basement, plonk it on the laundry table, start the cycle, scoop the soap, stick my arm into the machine and shake it shake it to distribute the detergent evenly. And then I check the tub. For what, I'm not sure. An errant sock, perhaps?
There was no errant sock, just a quivering mammal. The back of a brown furry mammal hanging upside down. I screamed like a girl. And believe you me, I've tried to find another way of describing the sound I made, but it was a high pitched, shrieky blast of "motherfucking hell what in the fuck is that in my machine?". The correct answer, my dears, is Myotis lucifugus, or one Little Brown Bat. The poor wee beastie only breathed a little faster after my scream.
After my reversion to stereotypcial femininity, I carefully closed the lid of the washing machine, marched upstairs, closed the basement door (uh, just in case the sick tiny bat managed to open the machine lid), and went straight to google. I was on the phone with the City of Ottawa in a few minutes, and after the two phone calls it took to assure Shelley from Bylaw that there was no way the bat came anywhere close to biting me, and an hour's wait, three bylaw officers were on my doorstep to rescue me from the creature with no intention of hurting me.
They took it away to be euthanized, a more humane death than freezing in a snowbank, the only death I could have offered it. At least according to the Humane Society webpage.
It's good to know what you can and can't live with. I've taken bats off the can-do list.
2 comments:
I also cannot live with bats. I bear them no ill will, I know they're our allies in the war against the insects, but I can't fall asleep in a house with a bat that could fly around me while I sleep.
And I can tell you that "catch and release" doesn't work. You can take them to Gatineau and they'll be back in a day.
The creepy thing is that I have no idea how long it was down there for.
And thank god I'm right handed, or I would have smacked it on the way in with the detergent. Aie.
Did the same bat come back from Gatineau?
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