ModernGeek

Yesterday morning, I was abruptly woken at 5:30 AM by disturbing scratching noises coming from behind my bed. I though, my brother's hamster might have gotten loose, or there was some sort of mouse behind there. So, I moved back the pillow, and a large flying object comes flying out at extreme speed from behind there, and started flying in insane circles around the room, and ramming his head against the door so hard, I thought he was going to split his skull. So, I freak out, jump out of bed, get out of the room with the flying thing still going in circles. My Dad, came up a few minutes later, and the flying thing was nowhere to be seen. Now, at this point I'm being given dubious looks, like "Are you sure you didn't dream it up?". Well, now I've lost an hour of sleep, dragged Dad up to my room for no aparrent reason, and am totally freaked out. Well, throughout the day there's no sign of the flying thing, which at this point I thought was a bird.

That evening I got home late from Softball, and from 9:00 to 10:00 I'm in my room hearing scratching sounds coming from either my closet, or my fan, which has a type of "bowl" thing at the top with holes large enough for a bat to get through. Finally, at 10:00 I can't stand it anymore, and go and call Dad who comes up, and locks in the closet, and kind of knocks the fan, but with no response. Now, I feel really stupid, and paranoid, and attempt to go to sleep, which I accomplish in the end.

This morning, I hear stories of how my great-grandmother had two flying thing sin her room last night, and I'm greatly relieved, knowing that I'm not the only one who's hearing and seeing things.

Now, based on flight pattern, response torwards light, size, and times being spotted we've concluded that the flying things are actually bats, and we have at least three in the house somewhere. So, this means that there's definately one living in either my closet, or my fan. I named him "Alucard" from the anime "Hellsing". :) So anyway, my Dad's plan for getting rid of the bats was to take a tennis racket, hit the bat as hard as possible, and then step on it while it's disoriented. MY plan(which is SO much cooler that Dad's) is to wait for it to land, then take a tuperware container and slam it down over it, slide a magazine under the container and bat, and throw it out the door/window to the outside. I'm also armed with a digital camera to take pictures, which if I get any, I'll post. Dad, and I are having a contest to see who will catch a bat first, and I am going to WIN! Anyway, I'll be giving updates on the bat issue tomorrow, as tonight I'm going bat hunting!

-Moderngeek

EDIT: 7:30: I'm all prepared with a medium sized plastic container, a thick magazine, and the digital camera. This is going to be an exciting night.

Almost 9:00: I'm all set here, camping out in my room, waiting for Alucard to show himself. I'll win this contest!

1:00 AM: HAHAHA! I just succeeded in successfully removing a bat from my great-grandmother's room! I have now won the contest, earned my great-grandmother's eternal admiration, and..... it's one in the morning. I also can't go back to sleep because of adrenaline running. I am SO going to regret this tomorrow morning when I get up for school. Anyway, there's one bat taken care of, but methinks there shall be more episodes to the bat saga somewhere in the next week, because like I said, we think there's probably three or four bats in the house. And, oh yes, I did get pictures. Only two unfortunately, but have you ever tried snapping a picture of a bat in mid-air with the camera in one hand and a sweatshirt that you're about to lob at the bat in another? It ain't easy. I'll be posting those tomorrow, because looking around for the cord that connects the camera and computer isn't something I like doing at 1:00 AM. Wish me luck with being able to get up tomorrow morning!

12:30 next day: Pictures are up!

Here's the bat when he decided to make his landing spot the top of the window.

Here's one I caught of him, while he was flying through the air. Let me tell you, it's not easy to capture a bat in mid air, and even more so when holding the camera with one hand.

Dad somehow was able to get this certificate printed out, and gave it to me as a joke. I came home from being bored to death from Spanish and found this sitting on the table. I laughed so hard I almost cried. The picture looks squished up because I had to reduce it by about 2/3 to be able to make it fit within my blog template.

Saturday morning: Someone requested for me to tell exactly how I caught the bat, and the actual process turned out much different that planned. Well, trying to trap him under the plastic container didn't work, because he had a liking to landing on walls too high for me to reach, so that plan was busted, then I thought I'd open the window and try to let him fly out on his own, but he somehow had decided that his official "spot" to be was going to be all the way ACROSS the room from the window. I ended up having to take a sweatshirt in one hand, and a large plastic bin top in the other(as a "bat shield") and kind of beating him across the room, and then crouching behind the "bat shield" when he would get crazy and fly at me. I ended being able to hit him out the window and slamming the window before he could get back in.