Climbing the Third Stair

So last night I went into my living room, turned on a light, and sat down to work on my rpg campaign. And then AAAHHHHHHGG!!!!WHATISTHISBATDOINGFLYINGAROUNDMYLIVINGROOM!!! Because there was indeed a bat flying around my living room.

I screamed, fled the room, slammed the door, and called Animal Control. AC soon showed up, captured the bat, and took it away. End of problem, right?

Except that bats sometime carry rabies, and ever since the Bat That Got Away and my undergoing the rabies vaccine I've been freaked out over bats and rabies, and now all that is back. It doesn't help that I started coming down with variety of sinus sickness as part of my post-Gencon festivities, which just gives the irrational parts of my brain fodder for DEAR GOD, I HAVE RABIES NOW. The timing doesn't work: I cannot be sick already from that bat, but my brain is perfectly capable of inventing phantom pre-Gencon bats to terrorize me. I wonder if this is some 'normal' abnormal thing, or if I have some odd form of PSTD.

In a few days AC will call me up and tell me the results of the rabies test on the bat, and the by far most probable result is that the bat will be rabies-free. (During the Bat That Got Away incident one of the AC people told me that the record year for rabid bats in Lincoln had a grand total of only five bats, which gives you an idea of how rare it really is.) In the meantime I have to find a way to live with both coming down with an illness and a mind that wants to make that illness a sign of something even worse. This is going to be a terrible week.

I thought about not putting this in my LJ because it is kinda melodramatic, but I think a fair number of people read my blog because I'm on the L5R Story Team, and it's information that I didn't know before now and I think other people might not know it either. So, the short form first:

If you or someone else has been sleeping with a room with a bat in it, CATCH THAT BAT and have it tested for rabies. Bat bites are tiny and painless and the sleeper could have been exposed to rabies without ever knowing it.

( The Long Form )

I was woken up this morning by the sound of something moving about in a box on the floor next to my bed. This was highly unpleasant, because that box is full of old L5R cards a friend of mine gave me when she moved to California and the idea that it was mouse-infested made me unhappy indeed. I turned on the lamp on my nightstand and the noise stopped, so I got up and went to the bathroom while I considered my options.

The noise started up again, so I went and sat on my bed and leaned over the box, wondering if I could just grab it and throw it and the mice out into the driveway. That was an attractive thought, but somewhat risky as I'd have to dash all the way through my living room and kitchen to get to the door outside. As I pondered the matter the noise got louder and something dark, ugly, and wrinkled crawled out. I reared back in alarm and then threw myself down on the bed, which gave me the perfect opportunity to appreciate the contrast the repulsiveness of a bat on the ground with the beauty of one in the air.

Now I was really, really unhappy. I've had bats in my apartment before, but the problem had gone away after my shower was replaced. (The new shower unit fit snugly into the wall, which presumably eliminated their route into my living space.) I don't dislike bats at all--I'm in favor of anything that eats its weight in mosquitoes--but I have a highly developed aversion to being in the same room as a wild animal. I still get the jitters when I think about the time a squirrel fell through my bedroom ceiling.

I beat a retreat to the bathroom and closed the door to reassess the situation. I knew that Animal Control would send out an officer to collect the bat, but the phone was in the bedroom, along with the bat. Call me a wuss, but I find myself unable to look up phone numbers when there is a bat circling around my head. On the other hand, the door between my bedroom and the living room was open so the bat could move away from the phone on its own. I opened up the door and watched and when it flitted out into the living room I dashed out of the bathroom and closed the door. Now I had a bat-free space to let my fingers do the walking. I looked up Animal Control, dialed the number and let the automatic phone tree shift me over to the 911 dispatch to contact the on-call AC officer.

Said officer showed up in about 15 minutes with her high-tech bat-catching equipment--a pair of heavy leather gloves and a plastic drink cup and lid. (I note that the professionals seem to be very casual about this kind of thing; the last AC officer I had used an old cool-whip container with holes punched in the lid.) Sadly for all parties involved, the bat had meanwhile gone to ground again and we had no success in trying to locate it. After poking around for awhile the officer brightly said that their offices opened at 7 am and I could call back at any time. Then she left.

I have made my morning pot of tea and am thinking of breakfast. It's hard for me to get enthusiastic about it, knowing that my kitchen might be batty-trapped.

I have decided that I need to go buy a butterfly net. The AC officer said that it was ok for me to release the bat if I caught it, as long as it hadn't had any contact with me or a pet. I don't have pets, so that only leaves me. I'm pretty sure that I would have noticed if the bat had bitten me, so that seems to be good.

Now I just need to figure out where one buys a butterfly net, and gather the courage to hang out in a darkened apartment until my prey makes their move. I can just feel Yaichiro and Gempachi rolling their eyes at me now--being afraid some something that weighs about the same as a butter-stick and eats insects seems a little silly. The really frustrating thing is that I know I'd be much calmer if I had a Girl Scout in the area, because then I'd have someone to model good behavior for. I have a variety of Molly Grue's problem in The Last Unicorn--it's easy to be brave for someone else, but what could one do if one could be brave for oneself?