“They used to call me crazy joe… well now they can call me batman!” –Morgan Freeman, Lean On Me

Firstly, I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately. I’m kind of in a weird place… exhaustion from a mix of life and work. It’s been difficult to write blogs or messages as a result. So just because you haven’t heard from me, it doesn’t mean that the love isn’t there.
That is… unless one of you reading this tried to lock me in a gym locker in junior high. No love for you, pal!

Anyhoo, speaking of weird places, I found myself in one a couple of weeks ago.

My friend was taking me for a rare night out. This guy has been my friend since 2nd grade! If you put that into perspective this means I knew him before I knew how to multiply numbers, knew what Atari was, or knew what an erection was. (Thankfully, I know what all of those things are now… some more than others, depending upon who’s in the room.)

Well, we’ve been taking eachother out for our birthdays for many years now. It’s more for tradition than anything at this point. This year, my request of venue needed to include a viewing of Watchmen. This was a big viewing for me because of the major crush I’ve had on the story for a large part of my life. I’ll leave it at that for now. This is mainly because I don’t want to display the full amount of geek over here. Although, it may explain why I was locked in a gym locker in junior high.

I always turn my phone off in a theater. I figure, even if someone died they won’t be less dead after a movie. Even a long one like Watchmen. However, I do worry every time I turn my phone back on in the case I get scary news. Until that night, I’d never gotten a voice mail beep when turning the phone back on. But alas, this time I got the scary beep. I immediately checked the message while we were getting back in the car and it was the wife. I will paraphrase her message:

“Hi… it’s 8:30 and we’re about to go to bed. I just wanted you to know that I closed the kitchen and playroom doors because there’s a bat in the kitchen. I didn’t want you to open the door and get surprised. Good night!”

I had to listen again because I wanted to make sure that she said a BAT got into our house. This totally sucked… I’ve never had any experience with bats that didn’t hit baseballs. Plus, I knew I wouldn’t get home until 1am… the last thing I wanted to do was deal with a fucking bat in the house. My wife hates rodents, so rodents with wings are huge on her hate list.
I heard later that she realized that a bat was in the house when my 4 year old daughter said:

“Look mommy… it’s a black eagle!”

(Sidebar: One of my fantasy baseball teams is now affectionately known as the “Black Eagles”).

I’m not sure if it was because of the idea of saving the wife, or wanting to be a hero after seeing Watchmen… but I mustered up the onions to challenge the bat when I got home. Not that I knew how to do it, mind you.

When I got home I started to search for tools that may help me snag the fucker. I ended up grabbing a tall, rainbow colored duster and a pet taxi that was once for my beloved cat. (RIP, Sedona). Then I went to work.

Of course none of the lights were on, so I was already gritting my teeth in fear. Sure, I WANTED to be a superhero…but most superheroes look more like this:

…and LESS like this:

So I shook the duster around to simulate my head… which I thought that the bat surely wanted to buzz when I came in the room. Nothing. I then turned the lights on and didn’t see anything at first. Then I looked over at the window and there it was. It was hanging upside down in my window, the little stinker.

(Sidebar: Why don’t bats get head rushes from sleeping like that? If I do that too long I forget how to spell my name for 2 minutes!!)

I sneak up to Sleeping Ugly, open the cage door…. And quickly swept it down onto a table, holding it down under the duster. It’s wings came out from either side of it, and I almost lost my shit. As a matter of fact, I may have shrieked… I don’t remember. I wish I could have taken a picture of the rainbow hued duster holding down two scary jet black wings. Eeeesh!
But I was able to sweep it into the cage and shut the door before it could fly at my face. I brought the cage outside and opened it, then ran back inside. I didn’t want to kill it; I’m not big on killing unless I have to.

Afterwards, I went into my office and started softly shouting “yaaaaaay”! Then I played the theme to Superman by John Williams. (Is that wrong?)

Before bed, I wrote a note and put it on the door for the family to read the next morning. It read:

“Daddy caught the bat… yaaaaay…. Now can I sleep in?”

(Sidebar: I did. )

You know, after you accomplish something like this… even if it’s as silly as this was… it does give you confidence. I would have no problem taking on another black eagle.

Or even that kid from junior high. Although, I think I’d need a bigger pet taxi.