Black Cats and Bats

“You’ll soon get to meet Black-O” I heard my father say to Amber, “But be careful. She scratches...”

We had just arrived at my parents’ house in upstate New York, following an 8 hour drive from Maine. Our mission for the weekend was to drop Amber off at summer camp (where she will stay for 7 weeks), the camp being within easy driving distance from the house where I grew up, and which my parents still occupy.

“Black-O,” I said, puzzled, “...was the barn cat we had when I was a girl. Has she risen from the dead, or is there another Black-O?” I inquired flippantly, while I seriously tried to decide which was the most likely scenario, being as my mother has an intense dislike of pets, only tolerating animals that stay outside and leave her alone.

Turns out this version of Black-O had been heartlessly dropped off somewhere in the vicinity, and had decided to adopt one of my dad’s barns as a home. After she proved herself a good mouser by leaving the remains of a couple rodents and a snake for my dad to see, he decided she would earn her keep, and thereafter provided her with a trip to the veterinarian’s and a regular portion of cat food.

So, yeah, the bats. My parents’ house is very old, the main portion of it having been built over a hundred years ago. Bats live in the cramped space between the outside roof and the living area. Don’t get me wrong. I like bats. Except when they get IN the house, which happens occasionally in that humble abode on the banks of the Cherry Valley Creek.

*flip, flip, flip, flip* As soon as I turned out the light and closed my eyes, I heard the almost silent beat of wings. “Steve!” I said to my husband, as I pulled the sheet over my head, “There’s a bat in here! Do something!” whereupon he quickly enlisted the help of his father-in-law, who (being somewhat- well, more than somewhat- familiar with how to handle the situation) used his tried and true bat-catching method (involving a badminton racket and a coffee can) to capture the winged interloper.

Outside, Black-O had the pleasure of chasing the disoriented winged mouse until it recovered enough to fly off into the night