Pickles was acting stranger than usual today -- she was stalking around the house and then quickly running from one room to another. "Must have gotten into some catnip," I figured. Catnip, despite the friendly packaging they sell it in at the stores, is really kitty crack. But I digress... When I heard her slam up against the headboard on our bed this afternoon, I decided that she needed a catnip intervention. Upon entering the bedroom, I quickly realized that catnip was not causing the commotion. It was a bat.
Pre-child, I would have just plucked this bat from it's perch on our bamboo blinds and taken it outside. But now with Madeline about, I find myself taking a little more precaution. I had no idea how long Pickles had been chasing that bat or how pissed off it was that it had been stalked as prey, so I quickly ushered our sweet little bloodthirsty kitty out of the bedroom, turned off the lights and ceiling fan, and closed the doors to our bathroom, closets and bedroom. I figured the bat could use a little alone time in the dark. I called Josh and shared the news with him -- he was heading out for a dentist's appointment and I figured this situation would give him something to look forward to while he was suffering in the chair.
So it was with great anticipation that Josh arrived at home and donned his bat hunting gear (that would be leather work gloves, a baseball mitt and a tennis racket - I kid you not). He opened the door to our bedroom (Pickles was on his heels - she had not forgotten about her quarry)... but no bat was in sight. After searching high and low, Josh and I gave up on the bat, figuring it must have escaped the same mysterious way it had entered, and resumed our normal evening routine. Pickles would not give up so easily.
Hours later, after I put Madeline down for the night, I realized that I hadn't seen our rambunctious cat all evening. I walked into our bedroom and there she was, camped outside our bathroom door and trying to look innocent. "That's weird," I thought, but being the good human that I am, I opened the door for her. She made a beeline for the trash can. "That's really weird," I thought, "Why is she interested in... wait a minute!" Sure enough, the bat had somehow managed to exit our bedroom and was now trapped in the bottom of our metal trash can.
Without too much ado, the bat was transferred from the trash can to a cardboard box. The box was placed on the rail outside our back porch so that the bat would have a lovely perch from which to freefall into flight. Good luck, little bat. We hope that you have a long life and eat many mosquitoes.
