#25: Christian Bale is the only bat I'm willing to put up with.

The night started off normally, I got ready for bed, grabbed my book and was ready to read myself to sleep when I heard a noise faintly resembling metal lightly rubbing against metal. The noise wasn't terribly loud, but annoying enough to warrant rising from my warm, comfortable bed to have a look around for the source. Turns out there was a bat clinging to the outside of my window screen chirping it's teeny, tiny, little head off.

Only chirping isn't quite the right word for what it was doing. "Chirping" is too pleasant sounding, like the sound of birds in the spring. The noise this bat made, almost ceaselessly, was the auditory equivalent of nails down a chalkboard, which I could hear through the closed window. The little thing was crawling around on my window screen and didn't seem to be hurt except for the screeching. I went back to bed hoping it would realize it wasn't going to catch any bugs clinging to my window screen and would fly away. But after a very long hour of eee!eee!eee!ing it didn't.

I opened my window and told it to go away, flicked the screen where it was clinging and shined my flashlight in its blind little eyes. It didn't go away and continued to pierce the night with its shrieking.

I was at my wits end so I tried calling Sir; surely he would know what to do. But he didn't pick up his phone. I called again. Nothing. I tried Sir's phone about four or five times figuring it would certainly wake him up if he was asleep. It was only 11:30 - fairly early for Sir to go to bed. But after half a dozen attempts to reach him, I figured he must be sound asleep as the phone had inevitably rung several, several times and failed to wake him. Hmmm. If he wasn't picking up his phone, he wasn't going to come and get rid of the bat. Now, I ask you, what is the good of having a boyfriend if he is asleep when you have rodents you need to be rid of?

I poked the screen where the bat was still baying. My tentative flicks became increasingly stronger as the little screaming bat began to really annoy the crap out of me. I thought about who else I knew who would be awake at that late hour. I decided if I couldn't reach Sir, his roommate, who we have adoringly re-named the Court Jester (nee, The Troubadour) and who works the late shift, would be the next best thing.

"Hello?"

"CJ, I have a bat problem."

"A wha...?"

"A bat. It's screeching outside my window and won't go away. I need sleep."

"Call Sir." (By which I think he meant, "You're not my problem, call your boyfriend.")

"I tried. A lot. He's not answering."

Pause. "Spray it with hairspray."

"That would hurt it wouldn't it?"

"Probably."

"I don't want to hurt it, I just want it to go AWAY or SHUT UP."

So CJ suggested that if I didn't want to hurt it, maybe spraying it with water would shut it up. I got out my spray bottle and squirted the bat until it was dripping wet, which just made it scream louder. Then the bat started licking the screen! The little bugger was drinking the water I was trying to shoo it away with! This incited intensified poking at the screen, more water spraying, some sailor-esque swearing and phone calls to my mom, who didn't have any fresh ideas either.

At about 1 AM, CJ called me back to enquire about the bat. I told him I had given up and had been forced, by a mammal the size of my thumb, into the living room to lie restless on the couch for the rest of the night because the damn thing would not SHUT UP. CJ was on his way home and offered to let me into his and Sir's apartment so I could sleep somewhere away from the high-pitched EEE! EEE! EEE! I gratefully took him up on the offer and met him in the parking lot.

We trudged up to their apartment, quietly, as to not wake up Sir, opened the door and let ourselves in. I snuck into Sir's room to give him a quick kiss on his sleeping cheek and, to my surprise, there he was, awake and alert, sitting at his computer, playing video games with his headphones on.

I just about exploded. "Where were you when I needed you?! There was a bat situation!"

Of course I was so keyed up about the whole bat episode, I couldn't go to sleep. Still awake at 2 AM, I lost it. I was so frustrated with my lack of sleep and so obsessed with the need to get some sleep, that I lay awake in Sir's quiet apartment and cried. Cried. About a bat. The last time I looked at the clock it was 3:11 AM. The alarm went off at 5 AM and at around 6:15 AM, I trudged to work.

And you know where that bat was when I got home from work? Still hanging on the screen outside my bedroom window. I started laughing. The maniacal laugh of a person driven insane by a small flying rodent with no regard for a person's sleeping schedule. I immediately called the apartment office and demanded someone come take care of it for me. I was NOT going to spend another night listening to its laments.

After calling the office, I escaped to Sir's again and crashed on his couch. And I did not move from that couch unless it was to get food. As my bedtime neared, I made Sir go back to my apartment with me, just to make sure the bat was gone. Luckily, it was. There was no note indicating the handy-man had been there, so I guess it finally flew away on its own. I have not seen it since.

The next night Sir and I went to see "Batman Begins." Bruce? I totally get the whole bat-phobia thing. I don't need to see another bat for a long, long time.

Also... got a new car! 2003 VW Jetta!

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