Bucolic, but just a Tiny Bit Batty

Last week my family and I spent some time at my in-law’s home in Central New York. My husband always enjoys returning to “the country”, and indeed it is a bucolic setting. My in-laws live on a hundred acres, complete with pond, cornfield, and eight horses in the barn. The rolling hills that surround their property are populated by dairy and goat farms.

In addition to the horses, there are many other forms of wildlife, or critters, to provide hours of entertainment. My sons love to pet the barn cats, and this year my younger son was treated to an anatomy lesson when one of the cats eviscerated a chipmunk in front of him. My husband and I enjoy sitting on the back porch, listening to the frogs croak and watching an impressive assortment of birds swoop back and forth from their perches in the trees to the feeders my in-laws keep stocked. Each day at dusk, a family of raccoons creeps out from their den to glean what the birds have left behind, with a few skunks elbowing their way into the feast as well.

On the second night of our visit, my family was enjoying a leisurely dessert of berry shortcake. Something must have caught my husband’s eye because suddenly he shoved me to the floor and shouted, “Get down, there’s a bat in the house!”  Sure enough, like a scene from “The Munsters”, a small brown bat started circling through the living room, dining room, kitchen and family room. I leapt under the table (taking my shortcake with me), followed quickly by my mother-in-law.  She’s pretty spry to begin with, but she flew under that table in a flash. “Think I’ll join you down here,” she said, while the bat swooped through the room.  A few minutes later, my younger son crawled under the table, muttering, “This is just like back in the cold war when they made you hide under your desk.” Clearly my kids watch too much of the History Channel.

My older son was oblivious, playing with his iPad on the second floor, so my husband shouted for him to shut his bedroom door and not to open it until he gave the all clear. The bat was making loops through every room, as my husband yelled, “Did someone activate the bat signal?” and ducking each time the thing flew near his head. My father-in-law was the most calm, strolling from room to room, assessing the situation. With a burst of inspiration, he grabbed several large pieces of cardboard, flattened Lego boxes left over from Christmas, and instructed my husband to try to herd the bat towards the outside slider. In between bites of shortcake, I peeked out from underneath the table, giggling as my husband frantically waved his Lego boxes as if he were parking a Boeing jet at Logan airport. 

“Where is it?” I shouted from my hiding spot, to which my husband replied, “It’s doing laps in the family room!”  “Can I come down yet?” my older son called from upstairs, while my younger son, hugged his knees and grinned with excitement.  Although he has an aversion to butterflies, he didn’t seem phased by a squeaking, flying rodent.

The bat, after missing several opportunities to exit through the slider, finally zoomed into the laundry room.  “What do we do?” my husband shouted.  “Do you need to do any laundry tonight?” my father-in-law asked.  “No,” replied my husband. “Then shut the door!”  And so the bat spent the night with the Tide and the Downy while the rest of us climbed out from our hiding places.

The next morning, my father-in-law crept into the laundry room and quietly captured the bat in a clear plastic container. After letting my sons have a good look, he released the frightened creature back into the wild. Although I have no great love for bats, I was impressed by my father-in-law’s determination to capture and release the bat without harm. A lesser man would have just grabbed a tennis racquet or umbrella and start swinging.

So while some may argue that Christian Bale is the quintessential Dark Knight, as far as I’m concerned, my father-in-law truly is…the batman.