We Can't Stop Here! This Is Bat Country!

I would have imagined yesterday that the highlight of my day would've been seeing the Flaming Lips live (a full review is forthcoming, but in a word: freakin' awesome), but somehow something much crazier than dancing Santas and Martians throwing confetti at me happened. What I will now describe is the absolute truth, and has not been embellished in any shape or form. Because that would be lying, and lying is wrong.


I was in the den, preparing to watch the rest of "The Colbert Report" before I went to bed. I was just settling into the couch, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something fluttering in the kitchen. At first I thought it was a dragonfly or something similar, but I realized it was much too large. I got up slowly to take a more careful look, when I was shocked to see that I had a goddamn bat in my kitchen, going absolutely apeshit. I slammed the door to the den, and paused to collect myself. After a few moments' consideration, I decided that my first best action was to text message a presumably-sleeping Joe Reefer as to my predicament. After all, what the hell kind of sane person is still awake at 2 am?

There's a bat in the house. It has scared the shit out of me.

I then decided at some point I had to confront the threat head-on, mainly because I didn't feel like sleeping in the den. So I came up with a plan to try and guide the bat outside through the door in the kitchen. At my disposal was the only thing at hand, a pillow. This was not really a helpful thing, but I felt better covering up my face with it as I prepared to combat the flying verminrodent. I then slowly made my way into the kitchen, inching along the wall and attempting to exeunt the bat through the door to the garage. That did not work, as the bat didn't fly into that direction. So I switched strategies on the fly, moving along to the door to the deck on the other side of the kitchen, pausing several times as the bat divebombed its way towards me on several occasions.

After multiple unsuccessful attempts to prop the safetybar up, I finally was able to open the door. I yelled at the bat, Get OUT, thinking that English was of course the bat's natural language. Meanwhile, my cat Rambo decided that now was the perfect time to come into the house, and he ducks on in. After the bat does another couple of loops through the room, Rambo JUMPS UP and knocks the bat down. I paused, concerned for my cat's well-being, and slowly make my way over to check on him. I then see my cat happily finishing up eating the bat. And you know what? All he wanted in return was a bellyrub and to sleep on my bed. I complied.

I relayed the information to Joe Reefer, and he responds the next morning with a brilliant summation of the entire episode:

Holy crap! Rambo is a badass

Yes, indeed he is.

Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum!

There's nothing like waking up at the crack'a noon after a night of heavy drinking. You can become a sort of detective on the trail of what the fuck happened the night before. It's a mystery to you, at least, though the people with you will probably remember everything and how you made an ass of yourself. This was the case this morning and, like a hung over Sherlock Holmes, I went out to investigate. Why is this wine bottle empty? When did I finally get to sleep? Did I send fucked up texts to people? Did I talk to such and such last night? Why is my nose broken? Etc.

And oh the surprising answers to these questions (Respectively: I drank that wine when I ran out of Cola, no answer found, yes, yes, my nose isn't broken).

So the point is, drink more or less responsibly. But a wise man once said, “I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day." You know who that man was? Steven Seagal!

(Not actually true. It was Frank Sinatra.)

Enjoy the weekend.