a bat...a rat...and a gnat?

It was Wednesday night. Caleb and Mel had just left, and Ryan and I were hanging out in the living room together.  I walked down the hallway to get a pen from the other room when I saw something FLY through the kitchen.   I didn't need to investigate the situation to know that it was indeed a BAT. Ugh. I know bats eat bugs, and they aren't out to get me.....but they don't belong in my house! I immediately spun around and ran back into the living room screaming "there's a bat! there's a bat! there's a bat!" at Ryan, who thought I was joking! He soon found out it was no joking matter when the bat came swooping into the living room and right over our heads.  It then flew back down the hallway and into the kitchen.  Ryan grabbed the dog gate for a shield and I followed behind him as we entered the kitchen. I think we thought maybe the bat would still be flying around, but of course it was nowhere to be seen. Awesome.  We searched the whole house and came up with nothing.  All the while I'm walking around in a hunched over position, convinced that the bat is going to come out of nowhere at any moment and dive bomb me.  We tried turning off the lights and opening the front door (apparently that's supposed to work?), hoping to coax the bat out of wherever it was hiding, but the only thing that came out of that was a whole bunch of moths coming in.  Great. Bat food. 

We finally called my father and brother in-law to come help us find the crazy thing. 

This is how Caleb showed up: 

After an extensive search of the house (again) and much talk of how on earth the bat got in the house in the first place, we still couldn't find it. Just when I was preparing to spend the night at my in-laws' house, my FIL suggested that Ryan check his office one more time, and look behind the things sitting on the speaker that hung on the wall.  Sure enough, the bat was there.  It was in a ball with its wings covering its head. I must have scared it with my frantic screaming. 

The guys shut the door of the office and developed a plan.  Thankfully the bat was near the office window, so Ryan opened the window making it as easy as possible for the bat to escape. He then turned off the light in the office and we all went outside to wait for the bat to fly out.  Yeah right. That would be too easy.  Plan B?  Ryan put on gloves, pants and a hoodie and braved the bat himself.  He threw a towel over the bat and picked it up, planning to just toss the bat and towel out the window.  I was waiting on the other side of the office door, when I heard Ryan say "I got it!....oh, wait...no I don't!" I later found out that he thought he had the bat in the towel but quickly realized that he didn't when he heard what he describes as a high pitched electronic sound just inches from his face.  He turned his head and saw the bat sitting there with its mouth open and eyes glowing.  He threw the towel over the bat again and tossed it out the window as fast as he could.  Don't know what happened after that, but I can only assume it flew off somewhere, and I hope it doesn't come back!

The "bat busters" as my dad called them. Ryan is holding a fake C4 bomb that he made. That is what the bat was hiding behind. haha.

You may be wondering about the reference to the rat in the title of this blog post.  While we were looking for the stupid bat we were all kind of laughing about the irony of the situation.  Caleb and Melissa were having their own issue with an uninvited creature in their home and were staying at my in-laws' until the thing was either trapped or killed.  We're assuming it was maybe a rat, but nobody knows.  Whatever it was, it chewed a hole through their wall, and ate dog food.  

As for the gnat in my blog title.....I found out the next day that when my father in-law was trying to fall asleep that night he had a pesky gnat buzzing around his head.  I thought it was funny. And it rhymes with bat and rat. :)

The whole bat fiasco took me back to my Ruth Harbor days.  There were three during my time there.  I won't recount the stories now, but they are all pretty funny.