HEY DADS! What fun things do you like to do in your bedroom?
Chase bats around with towels and tennis rackets?
If you haven’t tried that yet you really should! It will enhance your marriage by leaps and bounds…and screams.
When we moved to our old farmhouse out in the country I was in the middle of doing some renovations when we found some hidden treasures between the studs in one of the walls.
My buddy Jeff and I had just finished the super enjoyable job of tearing out a pile of lath and plaster. We thought we heard some squeaks coming out of the wall. After removing some more material we discovered a few somewhat stunned bats hiding in the wall. We took them out of the wall and brought them outside to live a life of freedom somewhere else. Somewhere very, very else.
Or so I thought. What I didn’t realize was that in old farmhouses there are old nooks and old crannies that may contain old bats that perhaps lived there longer than I had. Maybe they didn’t appreciate my interruption to their daily routine. In the coming nights I would learn that my wife, Alli, didn’t appreciate their interruption to her nightly routine.
It started out just as any other night…”Ma in her kerchief. And I in my cap. Had just settled down. To a long winter’s nap.” It was actually a summer’s nap. And it wasn’t very long because at some point in the middle of my dark slumber I felt someone smack me and say/scream/shout,
“JAY! THERE’S A BAT IN HERE!”
I stumbled out of my sleep in a groggy stupor unsure of what exactly was happening. I looked around and couldn’t see anyone. Just a lump hidden under the covers beside me.
But there was an unfamiliar sound.
A flittering, fluttering sound that seemed to be going around and around in circles somewhere over my head. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that my heartbeat increased a little bit. Like we tell our kids, “Feel the fear and do it anyways.” Good grief.
And how is one supposed to catch a bat? I had no net, no trap, no bird of prey to send in pursuit. Turning on the light I discovered a pile of laundry! Clean or dirty, it didn’t matter!
It was just the ammunition I needed. I started tossing bath towels to and fro in a valiant attempt to subdue the winged predator. He escaped from one room and flew to another. I followed in hot pursuit and eventually apprehended the perpetrator with a well-aimed pitch of the towel.
I was able to gather him up and toss him out the front door into the night where he would be free to terrorize another rural family. And that’s when I started spray-foaming exterior holes in our house and sleeping with a tennis racket under my bed. There would be more BAT-tles to come.
Dads, it’s not every day we get to defend a damsel in distress but when the opportunity arises may we never be called cowards! Take courage! Time flies (so do bats)! Make every moment count!
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