As Kirsten's previous posts mentioned, her mom worked hard to decorate our house for the upcoming fall holiday while she was here when Kirsten was bedresting. She made a wreath for the door, arranged mums on the stoop, cutout paper ghosts for the light fixture in the dining room, strung black skull garland over the fireplace, and apparently put a very realistic bat in the basement. What do you think?
OK, so Kirsten's mom probably didn't have anything to do with it, but that's a live bat in our basement. Right in the stairwell, at eye level when you open the door from the dining room.
We discovered it last Sunday evening, as I was putting the tools away after moving around our over-the-air HD antenna. I don't have anything against bats, so I gave it a few days to leave. It was there every time we checked, and other than possibly bat-caused thumps against the basement door on Monday and Tuesday evenings, it showed little inclination to leave. So on Tuesday night, we decided to help it. We opened the french doors and the basement door, and sat in the dark for a few hours, hoping it would just fly out on its own. No movement.
Then, I decided to help it. I put on gloves and a jacket, and armed with a tennis racquet and window screen, I swatted the wall near it, hoping it would fly away. No movement. Then I nudged it with the tennis racquet. It moved alright, but dropped straight to the floor and didn't move. Uh-oh. I trapped it in a bucket, without touching it, and carried it outside, vowing to call the health department in the morning.
When I was connected to the infectious disease nurse and explained the situation, she wanted to test the bat right away. So I canceled my meetings and drove home to get the bat and drive it to its demise in the state lab. However, when I got home, the bat had escaped. Good for the bat, I thought, it is not sick after all. However, when I called the infectious disease nurse back to share the good news the bat must have been fine, she had a different interpretation.
Long story medium-length, I'm now receiving treatment for rabies exposure. (It is extremely unlikely I was exposed, but there is no treatment for rabies so symptoms=death, and I'm not really willing to bet my life (literally) I was not sneezed or drooled on by the bat.) This is a series of shots, five on the first day, and then four more over the next few weeks. It's fine, as years of allergy shots and blood donations have desensitized me to needles, but somewhat inconvenient.
There's also this surreal quality to receiving this treatment...I'm being treated for what? Sorta like living in Alaska: I live where?
