The Bat

That comment about the bat in my last post seemed to hit a nerve with a couple of you and deserves an explanation.

For years we have vacationed with Darrel's side of the family at Bear Lake. It's beautiful and mountainous up there and a perfect place to just get away from it all.

We had stayed in time-share condos near the beach in years prior. But the year after we got married, there were enough Chamberlains that we needed to rent two condos to accommodate everyone, one on the first floor and a second floor condo right above it. Darrel and I got a bedroom in the latter condo, which seemed like a little piece of heaven because we wouldn't be awakened in the morning by early risers.   Ahhhhh...

We went to bed the first night of the vacation. I don't remember if I had already fallen asleep or only Darrel had when I became aware of an unsettling rush of air very close to my head. Weird. Then again. There was definitely something flying around our room! I instinctively covered my head with the blankets and quickly woke Darrel with a panicked whisper, "Darrel, I think there's a bat in our room!!" I don't know why my mind immediately jumped to "bat", but it did. Darrel and I laid there in the dark, listening to an eerie scratching sound. Darrel finally reached over and turned on a light and we cringed in the bed, looking around for the culprit.

Our nighttime visitor quickly made a horror show type appearance from behind the long curtains covering a tall window on the outside wall. I swear that thing crawled around the curtain it was hanging on, fangs bared and ready to eat us alive. And it was huge. It started flying around again and we dove under the covers. Now what? There was only one thing to do...and I made Darrel do it. I WAS NOT getting out of that bed! Poor Darrel! I thought there was nothing worse than running into a spider or other insect in your underwear (or worse, in the shower when you're completely naked and vulnerable) until we ran into that bat! Definitely worse. Darrel grabbed a pillow and ran for the far side of the room. He began to swat at it as it dive-bombed him until he successfully knocked it to the floor and covered it with the pillow. We didn't wait around to see if it crawled out. We grabbed our clothes and ran out the door as fast as we could on shaky legs.

Out on the landing between the two floors we ran into Darrel's dad who had come up to investigate the commotion. He was unsure whether to knock on our door or leave us alone. After all, we were newlyweds. Maybe we were "busy". We thought that was hilarious and related the story of the creature from the crypt. We went downstairs and pulled out the very lumpy and uncomfortable sofa sleeper and tried, unsuccessfully, to get some rest.

 

The next morning we worked up our courage and went back to the scene of the crime.  I don't know think I even dared go in the room, but Darrel and one of his brothers finally did it and gingerly lifted the pillow just enough to make sure the bat was still there.  The poor thing had suffocated and looked rather flat and somehow much smaller in daylight, about the size of a rat. With wings stretched out it was more imposing, but still not quite as big and sinister as I remembered it. Still, it's not the kind of thing you want flying around your bedroom at night.

After the Year of the Bat, we became aware that all those "birds" flying around Bear Lake at dusk are not really birds at all.