Chapter 14
Crazy as a Bat House
While man shopping on the internet I had met the greatest guy and had been having a wonderful time getting to know him. He had been a widower for several years and had raised his two daughters on his own. He was kind and generous and non-judgmental. He was very good looking but not in an intimidating kind of way. Just unshaven enough for my liking and not stuffy in the least.
We had been dating for several weeks and were both really looking forward to a very intimate weekend together.
The weekend started out on a very romantic note. I had made dinner and Joe brought a lovely bottle of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. It was snowing gently outside and we sat in front of the fire in the den and talked for hours. I admit that I had fallen completely head over heels for this guy.
After finishing the bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, which I was surprised to learn he had hand dipped himself, we retired to my bedroom for the most incredible night of love making I can remember in a long, long time. We took our time and really got to know each other’s bodies like I could previously not have imagined possible. The depth of intimacy we attained was incredible. When we had finished we fell asleep holding so tight to one another that I thought nothing could separate us...until nature called at about 2:00 in the morning.
I sat up in bed and in the glow of the candle watched Joe sleeping. His chest was nicely built up from his years of working as a carpenter. His shoulders were broad and he had a manly, square jaw. In this light I could imagine his picture in a catalog touting men’s pajamas. I kissed him gently and snuck across the hall to the bathroom.
While I sat, still basking in the feeling of having made love for the first time in a very long time and feeling completely satiated I heard a scratching sound at the bathroom door. I assumed it was my cat, Gracie, and figured I’d see one of her paws poking under the door as she often did to get my attention when a door separated us.
As I turned to look from my rather vulnerable position, though, I did not see a kitty’s paw but instead watched as a very large bat folded himself up quite neatly and slithered under the door into the bathroom. When he heard me gasp he turned his head in my direction, opened his mouth wide, and showed his impressive fangs. His face looked like someone had dressed a mouse for Halloween in a very realistic vampire costume, fangs and all. His ears twitched nervously and spittle sprayed vicariously when he hissed his displeasure at seeing me in what he thought would be his refuge from the cat. Right after he came through I saw Gracie’s paw poking under the door trying to grasp his tiny bat foot which was right out of my cat’s reach.
“Right on time, Gracie,” I thought. “I’m so trading you in for a dog!”
As I sat contemplating the situation my first thought was that I really didn’t want to get up and drip on the floor. I was determined to finish what I came here for regardless of the fangs he showed again or the threatening hisses he continued to direct my way. This was my house, dammit, and I was not going to let this crazy little bat tell me when I could pee. I would not dribble on the floor and make a mess that I would have to clean up later because this bat got lost in my house and couldn’t find his way out...This was my thought until the bat took flight and headed straight for me. So much for being the queen of my own home; I had just been dethroned by a flying rodent. If he wanted the damned bathroom that badly, I decided, he could just have it.
I promptly stood up, dribbled on the floor while I was grabbing at my new Victoria’s Secret silk pajama pants, and dripped on the pajamas too. Now I was really mad! Those pajamas were a huge splurge for me and I spent the better part of a day picking the sexiest set I could find for this very special night with the terrific man who was waiting in my bed while I scrambled around my bathroom trying to elude this flying rat. Where is the justice in this? I wondered. This bat would just have to go!
When he flew onto the shower curtain rod I opened the bathroom door just enough to slip through and closed it behind me. The plan was to go and get a pillow case, throw it over the little flying monster, and put him outside where he belonged.
Just as I closed the door, however, I saw Joe standing in the doorway to my bedroom.
“What’s up?” he asked. “You look a bit flustered.”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Go back to bed; I’ll be right there.”
He walked toward me and wrapped his long, muscular arms around my waist and gave me a deeply passionate kiss. I knew we’d be awake most of the night after a kiss like that and I couldn’t wait to get back to more of that. I certainly did not want to spoil the mood by telling Joe that I had sat to pee in the company of a bat. I also did not want him to think that I lived in a house that was full of flying rodents on a regular basis.
“I’ll meet you there,” he said. “I just need to use the bathroom real quick.”
“Can’t you wait?” I asked, kissing his neck and trying to get him headed in the opposite direction.
“Wait?”
“Yes, do you have to go right this minute?” I asked. “I have something far more interesting in mind for you over here in the bedroom.”
“I can’t wait to see what you have in store for me,” he said heading toward the dreaded bathroom door, “but right now I really need to pee.”
“OK,” I said, “but there’s something you need to know before you...”
“Really,” he said impatiently, “it will just have to wait. I need to go.”
Before I could stop him he turned the doorknob to the bathroom and pushed on the door. As if he had been listening to our conversation and knew just when to take flight, the bat flew out and literally dive bombed Joe’s head. And my handsome, masculine lover let out a girlie scream that rivaled my sister’s response to the frog I had put in her underwear drawer in the sixth grade. He waved his arms to fight off the flying predator and the bat flew over my head and landed on my bed. I grabbed a towel from the closet in the hall and tossed it over the bat.
I scooped it up and was about to take it outside when Joe walked into my bedroom. He avoided the bat and I by making a big circle around us and picked up his clothes and shoes which lay beside the bed where they had been left in the throes of passion not so very long ago. His eyes never left the squirming towel in my hand as he backed out of the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m going home,” he said.
“It’s just a bat,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. They wander in every now and then.”
“Every now and then?” he practically shrieked. “You mean this has happened before?”
“Just a couple of times,” I said feeling a bit embarrassed about the state of my home now. “Not really very often.”
He was putting his shirt on over his head as he hurried down the stairs.
“I hate bats,” he said. “They are the most repulsive creatures on the planet earth!”
“I’ll take the bat out,” I said quietly. “He won’t bother you anymore, I promise.”
I stood at the stop of the stairs holding the towel-encased bat.
“I’m sorry,” Joe said with his hand on the front doorknob. “This is just more than I can deal with tonight. I’ll call you later.”
The front door closed and I heard his tires squeal out of my driveway. Gracie looked up at me, eyeing the wiggling towel with vague interest.
“That goes to show you, Gracie,” I said, “never trust a man who doesn’t trust a bat.”
Gracie and I took the bat outside and set him free and I returned to my empty bed. I felt the pangs of loneliness set in for the first time since I’d been dating Joe. Gracie curled up in my lap then and we sat comforting each other in the candlelight.
For the next two days I waited for Joe to call. I mean, he said he’d phone, right? When I say I’ll do something, I do it. Right? I tried staring at the phone. It di
dn’t ring. I tried ignoring the phone with just the tiniest glances in its direction. Still it didn’t ring. I tried to meditate. I closed my eyes and pictured Joe picking up a phone and dialing my number. Alas, the phone still did not ring. And so I ate a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Super Fudge Chunk.
On the third day of waiting, after I’d finished off a pint and a half of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, I finally gave in to my obsession with the phone and called Joe. Maybe he had just been busy, I thought. Maybe he’s been working overtime. Maybe he’s been hanging out with his friends watching football. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I just needed closure and that could only come with one final conversation. I felt like I was dangling precariously from a cliff by my fingertips just waiting for the final word. If we were through then I HAD to hear it from Joe. I thought we had such a great relationship and the idea that a bat in my house could end that just blew my mind. I just couldn’t accept it until I heard it straight from the source’s mouth. Although the common sense side of my brain said it was over, the hormonal side of my brain said we still had a fighting chance.
I dialed his number and after three rings it went to his voice mail.
“Hi, Joe,” I said, trying to sound as chipper as I could. “I just wanted to...apologize for the other night and see how you’re doing. Could you call me, please?”
The instant I hung up I just hated myself for giving in and making that call. Why was I apologizing to him? I have a perfectly lovely home; it’s not like I invited the bat in.
However my hopes were renewed, valid or not, that Joe would call back having seen the error of his ways. And so I waited...and waited...and waited. In the meantime I polished off a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Triple Caramel Chunk and a pint of Karamel Sutra.
Until at last the wait was over and I received an e-mail from Joe the cowardly, bat-phobic, girlie screaming man. It read as follows:
Hello Lucy. (Like this is just a very casual, nonchalant letter and we’re still the best pals ever.)
I’m sorry I haven’t called but my dad has needed extra help with his feeding tube the past few days and I’m the only one who has been available to assist him.
(By the way did I mention that my cousin knows his dad? The guy owns a strip bar and my mind cannot even bend far enough to imagine what he might be doing with a feeding tube.)
I regret to tell you that I have reconsidered my decision to continue my relationship with you as my father’s medical condition is deteriorating and I am his only surviving family member.
(Only surviving family member? My cousin is dating Joe’s twin sisters who are dancers at the strip club. His brother is a bouncer and his mom keeps the books at the lovely family-owned establishment. Feeding tube, my ass! My cousin says that Joe’s father is the biggest tipper in the place!)
I only hope that you can forgive me as I accompany my father on his final journey home.
With Warm Regards,
Joe
Having had enough of my affair with Ben & Jerry I called the girls over for ladies’ night. I knew, without a doubt, that they could help me sort through the end of yet another relationship upon which I had precariously balanced my hopes for future happiness.
When they arrived on Saturday night I felt like it was Christmas morning when I was in the fourth grade and I opened a brand new candy apple red unicycle. Truly the best gift I have ever received.
LeAnnie showed up with the “dipshit,” a several-layer black bean dip served up with giant Frito Scoops. Kim brought the ever popular warm and succulent fresh crab dip and assortment of deli crackers, and Joye brought a four-layer almond mocha cake which she spent the entire evening swearing she had not picked up at the bakery on her way over.
The drinks would be my specialty that night, and I had just begun to mix them up when I heard a blood-curdling shriek from upstairs.
Joye had just scooped up a Frito full of dipshit which promptly fell to the kitchen floor when she heard the scream.
“What in the Hell was that?” Joye said.
“That was Kim,” LeAnnie said.
LeAnnie, Joye, and I ran upstairs. Kim stood at the top of the stairway staring at the doorframe of my bedroom from which hung a moderate-sized bat.
“He flew right over my head,” Kim said, “and landed right there.”
“I think he’s mocking you,” said Joye. “I’m pretty sure the look on his face is a smirk.”
“He dive bombed me,” Kim said. “It scared the crap out of me.”
“I wonder if it’s the same stupid bat that scared Joe off,” I mused.
“If it is then we owe him a debt of gratitude,” said LeAnnie. “Joe was a jerk and the bat only helped you realize that.”
“Let’s drink a toast to the bat that enlightened Lucy to the error of Joe’s ways.”
“All right, then,” I agreed. I started down the stairs but Kim stopped me.
“Aren’t we going to do something with the bat?” she asked.
“Of course we are,” LeAnnie said. “We’ll conjure up the god of the flying rodents and drink a toast to him. We’ll name a martini after him. Perhaps the gods will be more kind to the bat than they were to the woodchuck.”
“All right, then, how about the Flying Rodent Fantasy?” Kim suggested.
“Flying Rodent Fantasy it is,” Joye agreed.
We retired to the kitchen leaving the bat hanging in the doorway of my bedroom to which I would retire alone tonight. Joye broke out the Absolut vodka, cherry juice, and Cointreau and deemed this the Flying Rodent Fantasy.
After a couple of rounds we headed back up the stairs and LeAnnie grabbed a pillow case from the linen closet.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” she asked.
“I’m not so sure, but Steve Irwin, God rest his soul, says this is the best way to capture a bat.”
The bat was sound asleep by this time, upside down; his long bat wings wrapped around himself like a rodent’s Snuggie. His toes seemed glued to the doorframe.
LeAnnie put the pillow case over the bat, Kim pried his toes off of the doorframe with a spatula, and he fell into the pillow case.
We made another round of drinks and headed outside where we watched LeAnnie open up the pillow case. The bat took flight and was completely engulfed in the darkness a moment later.
We toasted our little friend and returned to the house.
“Now we need to find out where these creatures are coming in,” Joye said.
We all spanned out throughout the house looking for obvious nooks and crannies exposed to the outside world.
“Up here!” LeAnnie said.
We all headed upstairs to see what she was talking about. She showed us an opening to the attic which had been left open by the electricians who had done some work recently. She slid the door closed and in doing so resolved the bat dilemma for good.
The four of us returned to the kitchen and our Flying Rodent Fantasies and toasted a job well done and a nicely placed bat which brought to light Joe’s questionable scruples.
“To the misguided bat,” Joye said, raising her martini glass, “who helped Lucy find her way.”
I may not have had another shot with Joe, but LeAnnie’s contribution to ladies’ night certainly helped me forget about him for a while.
LeAnnie’s Dipshit
Layer One
1 16-ounce can refried black beans
Layer Two
4 ounces sour cream
4 ounces cream cheese
1 1-ounce package taco seasoning mix
1/3 cup chopped canned jalapenos
Blend the above together.
Layer Three
2 avocados, peeled, pitted and mashed
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
Mix the above together.
Layer Four
4 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 bun
ch green onions, finely chopped
2 cups shredded Mexican-style cheese blend
1 (2.25 ounce) can black olives - drained and finely chopped
In a 9" x 13" baking dish spread the refried beans. Top with sour cream mixture. Spread on guacamole. Top with tomatoes, green onions, Mexican-style cheese blend and black olives. Serve with tortilla chips and/or giant Frito Scoops.
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