Multiple Social Gatherings and Bats

Game night was the biggest gathering in chez duplex history… which isn’t hard because the prior biggest gathering was… 4 people?  There were 15 people in our cozy little half-a-house… 17 if you count unborn children.  Me, my newly engaged bride to be and complete love of my life Jen, my sister Lisa who is pregnant with baby D, her husband Ken, my brother John, his wife Mary who is pregnant with Baby P, Larry and his newly engaged bride to be Nawal, Mike the Wisconsin Bass Player who is no longer from Wisconsin, Jamie and her soon to be husband Michael, Carolyn, Martha, Marissa, and Barbara. 

We didn’t have enough chairs.  Or at least we didn’t have enough room in the living room to fit the chairs we needed.  Folks were sitting on the floor and on the stairs.  There were no actual games played on game night this time.  That sometimes happens, when everyone is just enjoying hanging out and we forget to pick something to play.  We did have the Celtics game on the TV, and an nhl.com auto-updating scoreboard on the PC in the back room, so I guess those can count as the games.

Sunday was a little more relaxed.  Jen and I spent most of the day running various errands, including visiting the cemetery in Lawrence where her grandparents and aunt and uncle are buried.  We put flowers on the graves and let everyone know that their Jenny is getting married.  hehe

On Monday I did two things.  Threw a Memorial Day cookout with my fiance, and got sick.  Urgh.  I thought I was going to ruin things by catching a stomach bug.  It was scary for a little while, but I got better.  Thankfully.  This time we had Me and Jen and Harry and Bellana, Jen’s mother and step father, My mother and father, Harry and Bellana’s father Mike, and my brother, and his wife and the future baby P.  The seating situation was much better this time.  We had an old fashioned cook out.  My brother took the grill reigns and ran with them.  Harry and Bellana and I had a cutthroat game of War using a deck of Star Wars playing cards.  I still don’t understand how they could make R2-D2 an 8 and C3-PO a 9.  R2-D2 should be an Ace.

The party broke up a little before 7:00 I think.  Then Jen and the kids and I settled in to watch Madagascar.  After the movie the kids went to bed and Jen and I relaxed on the couch after our hectic party schedule of a weekend.

That’s when it got weird.

I forget what time it was, maybe around 10:00 or so, when the neighbors started getting really loud on the front steps.  There was some commotion going on and after a minute or two there was a knock on our door.  It was one of the kids from next door (maybe 8th or 9th grade or so).  Turns out the commotion was the result of a bat flying around in their dining room. 

There were four kids in the house and they didn’t seem to know what to do.  I can’t blame them because I had no clue either.  The guy who knocked on our door (I’m sorry, I haven’t gotten any one’s names straight yet) took a swing at the little flying rodent with a frying pan and either grazed it or scared the holy hell out of it.  It flew into the back room and hid in a hard to reach corner behind a curtain.  None of us saw it go there.  So we’re all poking into the back room trying to see if we could see it.  Finally one of the girls saw the curtain move and the screaming and freaking out began anew.  (one of the kids asked me if the bat could kills us.  It was only about 4 inches long with it’s wings folded up.)  We opened the back door, but the screen door doesn’t stay open so we couldn’t just shoo the little fuzzball out.

I started whacking the approximate place the fur-bird was but then started having second thoughts.  If it were my house I would have reduced the rat with wings to a bloody pulp… but it wasn’t my house and frankly I didn’t want to clean up any rodent carcasses.  One of the kids had a pair of tongs and I took that in one hand and the mop in the other.  My plan was to shake the curtain till Bruce Wayne came lose and then swat it toward the door where one of the kids was waiting.  He wanted another poke that that little blood sucker.  He kept saying “batter up!” and I was having a hard time not laughing out loud.

After shaking the curtain a few times without prying the little sonar dude lose I got all humanitarian… batmanitarian?  I figured if the little bastard wasn’t going to let go of the curtain I would be able to grab him with the tongs and carry him outside.  It worked… mostly.  About one step from the door, with my neighbor holding it open, the little rat wiggled himself lose and took to the air.  Fortunately he went straight out the door.  The bat problem was solved. 

I went back to my side of case de ‘plex and told the story to Jen… I probably used 50% fewer words telling it then… this is already turning into a huge fish story for me.  I felt huge.  I felt like whatshisname Van Helsing.  I felt like I could accomplish anything!  Because I got a little mouse sized furry rodent out of the neighbor’s house. 

But… the kid next door said something that will forever chill my heart and rob me of sleep in the darkness of night… “The bat knows where we live now.” 

He could be coming back…

For revenge…