My mom emphasized being independent on so many levels. Never expect anyone to take care of you; never have any part of your life be dependent on someone else; and most importantly, never ever expect a man to save you....unless there is a giant awful vampire bat (not really a vampire bat, but in my head it was heaving with blood dripping from it's tiny little teeth as it was dive bombing my head) attacking you.
I must have been in 8th grade, like at the beginning of 8th grade because it was still warm out, our pool was still open and a comfortable breeze pouring in from outside. On the side of our family room there was a brick seating ledge (for lack of a better way to describe it) that ran along the wall, with a gold-framed fireplace with glass doors. It was old school. No flipping a switch and getting a beautiful glow. Nope, lots of soot, and a flue that you couldn't ever really tell if you opened it or closed it. Well, on this particular night, my childhood cat Genny (short for General as I was obsessed with the movie Cat's Eye when I was a kid) was frantically messing with the fireplace. She repeatedly smacked the corner of the gold frame over and over and over again. I moved in closer, smacking my hands and yelling at her to knock it off, as it was annoying me and interrupting my tv watching. She continued to ignore me until her face was suddenly overwhelmed with little kitty terror as she flung her paw backwards, pulling out a large black object with her.
I'm just confused, chasing after what I thought was just a large ball of dust that was propelled into the curtains of our bay window. Genny takes off running. I should have followed suit. But no, I'm like the dumbass chick who runs up stairs in horror movies instead of running out the door, and I walk over to the curtains.
"SHIT!" I scream as the ball of dust attacks me, trying to swallow my soul and as I maverickly dodge his evil attempts, he starts fluttering around the room in a rage. I run around the corner and peek back in, not entirely sure as to what I just witness, thinking it had to be a bird. Nope. Bat. Big. Giant. Angry. Scarey. Trying to kill me. Bat.
"MOM," I yell up the stairs, as she was having her "mom" time watching the tiny little tv in her room that is usually reserved for grizzled men who live in shacks. "Mom" time was time in which her teenage children had just gotten too annoying for her to be around and rather than snap at us, she would hang out in her big girl room ignoring any requests or demands we might present.
No answer. "MOM!!!" Still no answer. At this point I am hating "mom" time as I do not think my voice is clearly conveying the urgency of a blood-sucking demon trying to kill me to her. Ugh! Not wanting to take my eyes off of this devilish creature, I back out of the kitchen slowly and as soon as I lose eye contact, I sprint around the corner and run for my moms room.
I don't even knock because clearly my yells for help were not causing her concern and damn if I'll be ignored.
"Jesus Jackie, what the hell is so urgent?"
"Genny pulled a bat in the house. It's trying to kill me. You have to get it out of the house!"
"Why do I have to get it out of the house?"
"Because your my mom and it's your job to protect me from all things evil."
"There's not a bat in the house."
"YES THERE IS!"
"You're being dramatic."
"Go look for yourself. I am staying here." At this point Genny is also hiding under the bed in my mom's room, refusing to come out as she knows the evil that is waiting down below.
She rolls her eyes, swings her legs over the side of her bed and heads downstairs. I close the door behind her and jump into her bed. My eyes are glued to the door, watching for the first sign of trouble and listening for what I am afraid will be my own mother's demise. She should have listened to me.
"SHIT!" I hear coming from downstairs, very quickly followed by footsteps plowing up the stairs with loud thuds as she skips steps to speed up the process. She flies into her room and shuts the door. "I'm calling your brother home." She reaches for the phone and dials the friends house where he is supposed to be.
"Hi it's Juanita. Can you put Chris on the phone?" At this point I can only hear her side of the conversation so I am going to make up what I assume would have been my brother's response, given his being 16 and not about to give up friend time to hunt down a bat.
"Chris you need to come home now."
Why.
"Because I said so."
I haven't done anything, I'm just hanging out.
"There's a bat in the house."
So.
"So you need to come home and get it out of the house."
Why do I have to do that?
"Because."
No. I am not coming home to get a bat out of the house.
"Damnit Chris, we are stuck up in my room. Get home now."
No. I'll see you when I come home later.
Silence. My mom looks at me and calmly hangs up the phone. "Chris isn't coming." I had gathered this based on her responses and terrified look of what would come next. "We are going to have to do this ourselves," which was mom code talk for: I am going to tell you what to do and you need to deal with it because there is not a snowballs chance in hell I am going near that damn thing.
"What do we have to hit it with? Where are the tennis rackets?"
"Somewhere in the garage. We'd have to run through the room to get to the garage. I AM NOT DOING THAT."
"Shit, no tennis rackets. Ok, bats don't like light so we need to turn on all the lights in the house. They are attracted to the dark, so if we turn on all the lights and then open doors and windows, he'll just want to head towards the darkness and we won't have to do anything." She looked excited. She believed to the core of her being this would work. I believed to the core of my being I was my mom's sacrifice and she was going to send me in to open doors and windows. Bitch.
We get downstairs. Its calmly relaxing in the corner where the wall and ceiling meets. It's like a cheesy scene from a Western. He's staring at me. I'm staring at him. I hear a wawawawawa, wa wa wa... and I know it's game time. I run covering my head, screeching the entire way and it swoops down and begins frantically circling the room. I get to the first door and I fling it open, without stopping I run to the next and open it too. I run back to the kitchen to hide where my mom has not moved, has not contributed to our safety or her own brilliant plan. I knew that bitch was throwing me under the bus. We sit and wait. Wait for the rat with wings to get excited by the dark and leave the light. 5 minutes goes by. Fucker is still there.
"Well maybe we should get something to shoo it towards the door, help guide it. I bet he's scared and just doesn't realize it."
"What are we supposed to use?" I am not liking where this is going.
"Run outside and get the pool skimmer."
"The pool skimmer? It's too big."
"No it's not, it'll be fine. Plus it has that net on the end. It'll keep the bat away from us." Us? Us? Really mom? Us. There is no us. There is only me and I hate where this is going.
I sigh and decide to head out the front door and walk around rather than risk having my hair pulled out by the diseased infested flying bastard in the family room. I get to the pool skimmer. It's got to be a good 15-feet long. It works for our pool which is like 11 feet deep and obviously longer so people can use it. This isn't going to work, but whatever. I attempt to carry it but having is dragging behind me as I approach the scene.
I get back to the kitchen and hand it to my mom. She looks puzzled. "Go shoo it out."
"Why do I have to do it?"
"Because I had kids so I didn't have to do things like this."
Fuck. I run into the family room and attempt to shoo it with the net but oh wait, yep it won't do anything but stay parallel to the floor, it can't stand up straight and therefore I cannot shoo the beast with it. I hear my mom cackling in the background. Clearly this is part of her master plan to take me down. I attempt again and in the attempt to straighten the pool I hit the bat who then dive bombs me.
"Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god," I scream dropping the metal pole with a loud thud as it hits the hardwood floors. "It touched me!"
I run, seeking out the protection of my mother who is curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor laughing so hard she is no longer making noise as she has run out of air. Tears are streaming down her face and she looks like she has second degree burns with how red her face is.
"Shut up! It's not funny."
"You should have seen you with that pool skimmer."
"It's not funny." At this point even I have begun laughing. After a good five or so minutes, we are both able to compose ourselves. "What are we going to do mom?"
"We gotta get it out of here."
"Why won't Chris come home?"
"Because he's smart. I wouldn't have either if someone called me for this. Get the broom."
I get the broom. My hands are sweaty, my heart is racing and every nerve in my body is on full alert. It's the final showdown. One girl enters, and hopefully one girl and not bat, leaves. My mom pats me on my back, almost in a supportive, "I know you are strong enough my child," kind of way. I will not be beaten by a damn bat.
I charge. He charges. I swing the yellow and green broom with all my might. I connect. I send that fucker flying. He attempts to charge again but I got him a good two feet closer to the garage door. I swing again, but I miss, however this time he sees the open door and flies out. I slam it shut and lock it. I locked the damn door. Like the tiny little bat was going to pull out tiny little bobby pins, pick the lock and come back for another battle. I slide down the door and rest at the bottom, sweaty, slowly catching my breath and feeling accomplished. At this point my mom has gone and shut the other doors and windows and is inspecting the fireplace crack that the bat was pulled from.
"See," she begins, "we didn't need a guy to come and save us, we were fully capable on our own." You mean fully capable of using indentured servitude of your own child to save you. Whatever.
She had a valid point though. I don't think I ever asked a man to do something for me that I was fully capable of doing for myself, except maybe playing dumb about hooking up the tv/dvd player simply because I didn't want to have to do it. I have to say it may have been just easier if she gave me an instruction manual instead putting me through 20 some odd years of life lesson boot camp.
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