Pre-Ramble:  Where is Ozzie Osborn when you need him?  For the past two nights, my daughter and I have ended up shrieking down into the basement because there was a bat in the house. There’s nothing like waking up at 2 a.m. to the unmistakably creepy sound of bat wings wafting around in the airspace above your head.

Suffice it to say, I am not a fan of the bat … I’ve blogged about this before … give me a mouse or spider any day. Thank goodness for the kindness of friends and neighbors and the blissful ignorance of youth.

Bat Whisperer – On Bat-night-#1, we called in fearless, highly capable Canadian neighbor and self-proclaimed “Batman” who was able to search and dispatch in under 3 minutes using a tennis racket and plastic bag. This is a tough, can-do guy — shovels snow in shorts. There you go … No big deal … Done.

911-BAT – So, on Bat-night-#2, Batman (see above) was somehow not answering his phone (… ) …  Frantic daughter and I, bivouacked in the basement again, hovered over our cell phones weighing the pros and cons of waking up folks on our contact list in the middle of the night. Tapping the police seemed extreme. Did we really need 2 squad cars and Gunner the sniffer dog storming the perimeter?  …

We ended up settling on one of my daughter’s good friends, a second year student at Westpoint who was home for a couple weeks. We figured if he could make it through boot camp he could probably go toe-to-toe with a flying rodent. This fine young man didn’t bat and eye when we presented our case (still in delirious REM sleep phase, no doubt) and was on the scene in a matter of minutes. He took a few practice strokes with the racket (nice form) and commenced to the task at hand.

All in all, it took he and my daughter just a few minutes to “round ‘em up and move ‘em out.” (Daisy and I were supervising operations from behind the basement door … ) Lots of giggling and loud clunking sounds, followed by a slamming door and the clatter of cookie sheets and tennis rackets hitting the front porch. Bat-be-gone!  Boo-yah!

Bat-iquette?  So, now the issue becomes, what is the proper protocol for acknowledging this heroic act of kindness? The individuals in question, after all, have gotten up out of a dead sleep, slogged over to the house and flailed around for as long as necessary to get the potentially grizzly job done. Surely, some kind of remuneration is warranted.

After much deliberation, a nice bottle of wine for the Batman seemed fitting … something fruity with notes of mosquito. For Westpoint, a party-sized bag of his favorite kettle-corn (a big hit in the barracks) and a few $$ … com-BAT pay.

The Take-Away: No token gift can convey the depth of my gratitude to these two, princes really - THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!  And, please keep your phone by your pillow.

Pre-Ramble:  Just when you think it’s safe to go to sleep, you hear a flapping sound coming from the bedroom window and realize that there’s a bat in the house. Such was the case last night, which is why I got no sleep, which is why I’m so crabby.

I hate bats. I’d rather have a mouse, or a spider, (maybe not a snake), or a flipping wooly mammoth, … TEN mice even, or TEN FLIPPING WOOLY MAMMOTHS, than have a bat in the house.

I know, … bats are good creatures … they provide a vital ecological role … blah, blah.  Sure, bats are the only mammals capable of flight.  Great, whatever.  If you can even call that “flight” … all that creepy fluttering and darting.  Apparently, over 70% of bats are insectivores, with the rest frugivores (eat fruit) and carnivores (eat people).  And, bats can range in weight from an itty-bitty 2 grams to a chunky 3 pounds. Just what we need is a 3 pound bat hanging around the fruit bowl.

911 - People have all sorts of ideas about how to apprehend a bat that gets into the house including scooping it out of the air with a bedsheet, taking a swing at it with a tennis racket, or flicking lights on and off (to what – “strobe” it into submission?). I prefer to duck under the covers and scream at nearby family members. (Which is better than what I did when I was living in one of my first apartments and I thought there was a mouse in the kitchen trash can, which was to call the police.) (They were super nice about it and carried it out into the backyard.)

The Take-Away: When all else fails, call Critter Control … 651-731-3865. For $125 they will come out to the house and comb the joint with nothing but their wits and a piece of sticky cardboard until they find the damn thing.

Post-Note: For all you bat lovers (you have serious problems), the “Bats” wall poster shown above can be yours for just $21.99, or $129.99 framed. Heck, for $129.99, you can come over here and play tennis with my bat, … or roll around in a sheet with my ten wooly mammoths.