I am Batman...

Scene: A few nights ago...

"What the ..." I hear in an exasperted voice as my groggy, sleepy, semi-paralyzed eyes crack open to see Annie sitting straight up in bed. I must have dozed off again because the next thing I hear from her lips is a firm, there-will-be-no-argument, "Get up."

My eyes pop open, much faster than the wind-up of my brain, and I glance at the alarm clock. 12:30 AM. Sigh...

"There's a bat. Come on. Get up. We have to get Max..."

The following scene will, quite possibly, never leave my head.

Getting to Max's bedroom we open the door about 3 feet, flip the light switch and find: 1)a giant bat (at least a 12 inch wingspan) circling the room about five feet off the floor; 2)Abbey, our 30 lb. cattle dog mutt leaping straight into the air, lips (do dogs have lips?) pulled back into a smile while her jaws clack shut time after time, pass after pass, the bat's echo-location serving to avoid instant annihilation by inches at a time, while Vinnie whines and barks from the hallway.

After what seemed an eternity of this circular, panicked scene, but in actuality lasting no more than 5-10 seconds, Max awakens to the glare of the overhead light and turns to his wide-eyed parents peering in the doorway. And, in the most surreal moment you can imagine, sporting bags under his eyes and a vicious case of bed-head, he smiles...

Absolutely no clue of the scene taking place above and behind him.

At the not-so-gentle coaxing of my wife, keeping my head low I reach in and grab Max while calling Abbey out of the room. With both family members achieving the safety the hallway affords, we slam the door shut to catch our breath and gather our wits.

We won't talk about the 16 inch bat avoiding my every toss of the blanket as a substitute "game-net". We also won't talk about the broom and GIANT dustpan we thought of "batting" (get it?) the damn animal into the wall with. No tennis rackets, BB guns, NO DECENT WEAPONS!

What we will talk about is how the 23 inch bat managed to attach itself to the face, not unlike the face-hugger from the movie Alien, of Max's Spartan teddy bear on top of his armoire. And how the door stayed locked the rest of the night and through the following day while we went about our work days and figured out a game plan.

Luckily, upon hearing from the pediatrician and the health department, we were under orders to capture the bat alive. Basically, if you kill the bat by injuring it's head, they can't test for rabies. If they can't test for rabies, Max would have had to have a series of rabies shots. Bat teeth are very small, and sometimes can't be felt if you're sleeping and may not show up for a day or so.

You don't take chances with rabies.

Luckly, at the expence of my new fishing net (we also won't talk about how it was purchased specifically to catch the flying rodent), which now sports a hole cut out of the bottom about the size of a 36 inch bat (thanks health dept. tech), and BIG thanks to mom-in-law for the highly technical "broom sweep" move to get the teddybear w/attached sleeping bat into said net, the results are in: The health dept. tech ethered a very respectable, healthy, rabies-free 46 inch bat.

I guess we can deal with a few more mosquitos around the backyard.