Welcome!

4/4/13

Crazy Ass Bat Killer - OR - Fear Induced Insanity Is Amusing


There are certain things you shouldn't do when you have roommates you don't know very well. One of them is shellac a live bat to the carpet in the middle of the night. Apparently no one had ever told this to a roommate I had when I first moved to the Twin Cities. I will call her Notpam because her name is not Pam.*

Here's the story:
Way back in the fall of 1996, Notpam woke me from a sound sleep and asked me to 'help' with a bat that our cat had caught. This was not really what she wanted because I was not allowed to 'help' but had instead been called simply to observe her bat killing frenzy. Each time I stepped in to suggest we simply take it outside or to suggest I go back to bed, her fear filled eyes shot death rays in my direction. She had big strong man arms and was at least eight inches taller than me so I kept quiet and stayed put.

She had managed to trap the little screaming bat between a tennis racket and the carpeted floor in her doorway where the cat was calmly teasing it with its paw. Notpam ran frantically around the basement in her plaid robe looking for weapons. She disappeared onto the laundry room and emerged with a bottle of laundry detergent.

I asked if she was going to wash it.

"Nope. I'm gonna KILL it."

She proceeded to douse the bat, and the cat's foot, with approximately three cups of liquid soap. The bat became silent. The cat scurried away leaving little soapy paw prints every fourth step up the spiral staircase and into the living room. Notpam was so worked up she was panting when she put her face close to the bat and stated, "It's still alive!"

I wasn't sure how she could tell since there was absolutely no noise coming from the bat, but she was quite certain she needed to try harder. Up and into the laundry room she went, this time returning with a bottle of bleach.

The entire bottle of bleach and a large bleach stain later, her face was two inches away from the bat again. "Dangit." Notpam didn't swear. She said things like dangit and gosh. "Still breathing."

The utility sink was right behind me. Notpam flung herself across the room as I jumped out of the way. She crouched next to the cupboard under the sink and began to dig, tossing things into a pile beside her. "AHA!" She pulled out a can of spray shellac. Yes, that shellac: the 'traditional finish and sealer that enhances the beauty of wood' shellac. I could hear the victory music playing in her head when she jumped to her feet and ran back to the silent, most-likely dead, bat. She stopped. She looked down at the bat and then she shellacked the holy hell out of that soapy bleached carcass.

I started thinking about my damage deposit at that moment. I knew I would never see it again. I was pretty sure a bat shellacked to the carpet in the middle of an enormous bleach stain would not qualify as reasonable wear and tear.

That's when the victory music ended and spooky violins started to play. She glanced across the room and spotted the hammer in her pile of discarded cupboard items. She moved slowly toward it and picked it up. Then she moved even more slowly back to the bat, hunched a bit with her head down, approaching it much like a horror flick ax murderer approaches the defenseless naked girl in her bubble bath. Notpam lifted and then dropped the hammer onto the bat's dead little head.

But this was not the end.

Notpam grabbed a paint scraper and one of her pink bathroom trash bags. She lifted the tennis racket and scraped the bat into the bag. She tied the bag up tight and placed it in her dorm-sized fridge next to her beer and Gatorade so she could "show the landlord tomorrow and prove we had a bat in our apartment." I tried to convince her that he would believe her without proof but she insisted. I, in turn, insisted that when she delivered the headless bleached soapy shellacked bat to his door that she not mention I had been present for its demise. I said good night and went back to bed.

THE END (For now.)

Notes:

I wrote about this for a memoir writing class a while back. People did not believe the story was all non-fiction. But I guarantee that this is a true story. I have not lied about any of it... ok, maybe she was only four inches taller than me and maybe she didn't shoot death rays out of her eyes and maybe I didn't really hear music coming out of her head, but everything else is true. I swear. I could not have made it up.

I have had several people become disgusted with me because I find this amusing. So, just to be clear: I DID NOT laugh because the bat was killed in such an inhumane manner. I find fear induced insanity amusing... NOT bat torture. There is no need to report me to PETA.


*I use a fake name more out of fear than to protect her identity.

No comments: