Batman

Last night, as I entered the blissful state known as REM sleep, I was abruptly awakened to the sound of my mother shrieking . . . "Mark! Get in here! There's a bat! The bat is here!" Before you can say, "Holy nocturnal flying mammal Batman!", I leaped out of bed and donned my sturdiest fang-proof hooded sweatshirt.

As I stealthfully crept down the hallway, I was met by my father, who had went outside for a breath of fresh smoke, errr, I mean, air, to help him get too sleep. He too had heard my mother's distressed call for help and had armed himself with a weapon that has proved to be the downfall of many a bat . . . the badminton racket. Dad, after assessing the situation, incorrectly assumed that I wanted to be the hero and handed me the racket.

Having preached to my students about the ecological importance of all creatures great and small, I implored the man of the house to open up all the doors and let the bat enter the way it came in. After all, why should we be the death knell for an animal known to consume thousands of mosquitoes each night? We need all the help we can get up here in northern Minnesota.

I had no time to convince him of this poor little guy's right to leave our abode alive, and my mother was growing more panicky by the moment. I opened up the door to her bedroom and saw this human-shaped lump quivering underneath the covers as Myotis lucifugus soared above head, probably as afraid as she was.

Seeing an opening he immediately veered toward me and out into the hallway. After a few half-hearted swipes with the racket, he must have sensed danger. Instead of latching onto my face and gnawing a hole in my cheek, he made a beeline for the basement. My father, chuckling the whole time, shouted directions like Marlin Perkins telling Jim how to wrestle a dangerous anaconda on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Cautiously tiptoeing down the stairs, I spied my prey lying on the carpet. As soon as I took that last step, he flew directly at me and with a few furious swings of the racket, it was over. With mixed emotion, I collected the brown furry corpse in a towel and deposited him outside. The house was safe and all could rest easy. It took me awhile to fall back asleep after my adrenaline induced "fight or flight" instinct kicked in. And I still felt a little sympathy for the bat.

Ed. note: My father wants to let everybody know that I was just as scared as everybody else.