A lovely weekend in Connecticut was kicked off by a wildlife scare upon arrival.
It's 2 am and we've arrived to my mom's house for the weekend. The air is fresh and the moon is bright and almost full. I turn the key to unlock the front door, on which lives a lion door knocker. Step inside and walk down the hallway to the dining room. My sister left the light on dim, very romantic. In the summer-time there's often moths and flies and small spiders that make their way around the big old house that's loaded with cracks and spaces, which perhaps lead to the outdoors, that us people aren't usually concerned with. Maybe we should be.
What's that I see? Coming from the kitchen. Flapping it's wings. A moth. It's a moth. It's rather large. Flapping it's wings it comes closer to the 4 of us standing in the hallway. Actually it's a huge moth! My friend Andy once showed me a picture of a moth he caught at a house in France. It was gigantic and could have been confused for a bird. That's what this is, a fucking huge moth fluttering about. It quickly goes up near the chandelier then makes a circle around it and sweeps just over my head causing me to duck down to the floor and yell, "whoa!" It's not a moth. "Holy shit guys, get back!"
A couple weeks ago my mom mentioned to me that while enjoying a morning yoga video workout in the living room she moved into some upward facing posture and opened her eyes to a sleeping bat on the ceiling. She felt she had had a good enough workout up until that point and she was now done. So she quietly shut off the TV, opened a screen-less window, closed off the doorway to the room, scurried out to the car and was beach bound for the rest of that day. Then there were some mentions about trying to catch the thing on another day and then the next day it was gone. "Must have flown out the window. Haven't seen it in a few days," she said.
Here we are now. Watching a bat fly around the dining room chandelier, unable to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen on the other side. Just great. This thing never flew out, never left the house, has been here the whole time. Probably hibernating after feasting on the plentiful insects that inhabit this large suburban house. Perfect, just perfect. Getting away from the stress of the city only to be staying in a house with the stress of a rabies filled bite on the face while sleeping. There's nothing relaxing about any of this.
After several attempts of trying to catch this little brown bat with the use of noise, light and a white sheet, we gave up and the four of us headed upstairs where we thought we were safe. We started to discuss the situation. Minutes later the bat joined us on the second floor. My 3 friends huddled together in the kitchen next to the cats liter box, I should mention this cat wants nothing to do with any rodent and gets bored easily. I, on the other hand, locked myself in the bathroom, thinking it might be comfortable enough to spend the night. I had a rug and 2 towels. Great. After a few seconds of thought I opened the door to peak out and saw the bat fly up to the 3rd floor. I yelled to one of my friends to close the door at the bottom of the stairs. He did this and the bat was locked in the hallway of the 3rd floor. Relief. Oh thank goodness we can sleep in piece tonight. "Don't anyone open the door to the 3rd floor while we're here." We are fine
Sleeping in Connecticut is the best. It's super quiet and almost meditative, I find that I can empty my thoughts easily and drift off quickly. Remembering dreams the next day is the norm for me in CT. It's necessary for me to experience this from time to time.
Morning has arrived, I'm in between sleep and awake, or I'm sleeping lightly. I hear a voice speak and it says, "shit, oh shit." Now I'm fully awake. My friend enters the room where I am. "The bat is in the living room, sleeping." Damnit, it got out from the 3rd floor!!
The cracks in the walls, the gaps under the doors, there's so many nooks and spaces to hide and places to go there was no stopping this little guy from doing what it wanted to do. And now he rests.
Posthaste we opened up a window for the bat to fly out of if it wakes, and we covered the doorway by taping up a sheet...of course, by 'we' I mean not me, not at all me, I just watched with my hands partially covering my face like a shield. As soon as this was done, I got on the horn with Wildlife Control and told them to just come over and take care of this situation. There was no way us city people would be able to catch this bat - sleeping (as it was) or awake.
When the bat catcher arrived he asked for a ladder, as the bat was on the ceiling of a 14 foot high room. He put on a pair of rubber gloves, climbed to the top and with one hand took hold of the bat as if it were a dust bunny he was clearing away. That's it? 'One stitch?' (
Adventures in Babysitting reference).
And that was that, the bat was gone. One phone call and $110 later we were no longer staying in a bat cave. A moment later the cat came home.
