Freaky Friday - NO REALLY

Sorry for the lack of posting around here this week. With friends and family in town, blogging has taken a backseat. Plus I'm tired all the time and I've spent the week eating Canadian snack cakes that my mom brought with her.

So I have the best Freaky Friday story to tell you guys to make up for it. It is actually freaky!

Last night I had been out with my mom and some of our old friends from Canada, and we got home just before 11pm. I kissed the kids and hopped into bed. I'd spent the day walking, so I was totally beat. I fell asleep in like, two seconds. At about midnight, both my husband and I woke up to a weird squeaking sound. It was pouring rain outside, so I thought it was just the fan in our bathroom getting hit with like, hail or something. I told my hubs that it was nothing and to go back to sleep.

Well, the squeaking kept going. Finally, my husband got out of bed and started hunting around the room. We have a little air conditioning unit that we keep in our room because even though we have central air, I'm psychotic about it being cold when I sleep. I saw him stare at the unit for a second, and then announce "There's a bird in here." See, the unit has a hole that vents to the outside, and he figured that the bird had flown into the vent and then somehow into the unit itself.

So, since there is no way to access the inside of the A/C, he went and got a screwdriver and started taking it apart while I hid under the covers. Have I ever mentioned that I'm scared of birds? Well, I just did. I'm SO scared of birds. I don't like erratic movements and they tend to dart around a lot. Plus they have beaks. Beaks are just scary.

Also, my mom let me watch "The Birds" when I was like, a fetus. I feel like I was too young.

Finally, my husband realized that the only way to get the bird out of the AC out would be to turn the unit upside-down and try to shake it out of the little vent holes on the back of the machine. Since he needed my help, I had to leave my safe blanket cocoon to hold the unit upside-down while he shook it. We're pretty technical.

So, I was sitting on the floor, hoisting the AC in the air my my husband started shaking the bird toward the vent holes.

Which is when the BAT flew out.

Now, if I'm afraid of birds, bats make me want to cut my skin off and set it on fire. They are terrifying.

SO naturally, I ran screaming out of the room. Followed closely by my husband. We slammed the door shut and had a short conference in the hallway. It went like this:

Me: What the eff was that!?
Hubs: I think it was a bat.
Me: A BAT!? (Assume fetal position, begin rocking and thumbsucking.)
Hubs: What do we do?
Me: Ummm open the windows! Yes. You will run in there, open the windows and then run out again. I will support you from behind the couch.

My husband decided he would bravely head back into the room and open the windows in the hopes that the bat would fly outside. But he needed protection first. I ran to the mudroom and came up with his leather motorcycle jacket and a broom. Because I always care about fashion like that.

Armed with the broom (WHY is a broom always the first line of defense against bats?) he ran in there like a madman, opened the windows and ran back out again. We stood in the hall for three minutes and hoped it flew out. When we went back in the room, we started searching for the bat, just in case. Then, my husband found it.

Hanging upside-down from our ceiling. Asleep.

Naturally, my husband's inclination was to hit it with the broom. While I waited a safe distance behind the couch in the living room (to be honest, if I could have left the house completely, I totally would have), he swatted at it with the broom. Which is when the bat came flying at his face.

With ninja-like reflexes, my husband managed to panic so badly that he turned to run out of the room, but instead got the broom lodged against the dresser. Which then tripped him. He went face first onto the carpet, while the bat frantically circled around his head. I was hiding behind the couch when he came crawling out with a huge welt on his leg, his leather jacket, and his Buddy Holly hipster glasses a tad askew.

We still had no idea where the bat was. When we went back into the room, we couldn't find the stupid thing. We even went the safe route of putting one of our bar stools on top of the bed. I held it while my husband climbed on top to see if the bat was hiding on top of our closets (I should note that we have a vaulted ceiling in our bedroom. Great for interior design, terrible for bat hunting.) We still couldn't spot it.

So my hubs took the broom and started stabbing at my clothes closet. By now, it was about 1 a.m. and I was tired. Our new plan was to leave the windows open (in 40 degree weather, natch) and go sleep on the couches.  I thought the bat might have flown out, but I was too scared to sleep in our room.

We each downed a Tylenol PM (I WAS HIGH STRUNG OK) and set up camp in the living room.

The best part?

I still have no idea where that bat is. I can only imagine it plans on going on a killing spree when I'm being vulnerable, like getting out of the shower or trying to sneak in an episode of Arrested Development while the kids are sleeping. The windows are still open. My house is freezing cold. I'm excessively tired. And I'm scared of my closet.

So that's my Freaky Friday for today. There is a bat somewhere in my house, plotting my death and wanting to bite my face and I can never sleep in my room again. I swear, if it's chewing on my shoes, I will write a strongly-worded letter to Batman himself.

Batman. You and I are not friends.

Regular Freaky Friday will resume next week, unless I've been turned into a vampire. In which case, I will too busy searching about vampire babies on Yahoo to post bad fashion.

"About three things I was absolutely positive. First, there was a bat in my house. Second, there was part of him — and I didn’t know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, bats are dirty little rat-birds and I wish they would die."