The Bat

I made a mistake one time. It all started at a party. My friend Paris had a party years ago. Everyone was there. There was spiced cider, dancing, just an all around good time. Towards the end of the night when the party was dwindling down, it happened. Paris's cat showed up with a cute little live bat in his mouth. The next part is the part I wish I could take back. You see, I have learned that in this life everyone will face this question sooner or later. They can proclaim, "What a cute bat!" and just walk away. Or they can say, "It looks like it can't fly. I'll take it home." Unfortunately, I chose to take the bat home. This is what happened.

As soon as I got it back to my apartment, I realized I had nowhere to put it. So I thought--and this makes sense I think--I'll keep it in my bathroom. My bathroom at the time was kind of dark like a cave. So I put the little guy in there. He hung upside down from my towel rack, right above my toilet.
So the next morning I was a little hung over. I woke up, got some water, and went to the bathroom. When I went into the bathroom, I was shocked to see a bat screeching at me, but then I remembered, oh yeah, I brought a bat home last night. As soon as I turned on the light the bat started to make unpleasant noises, like he was cranky. So I immediately turned off the light. He liked that. But he didn't seem to like the noise of me peeing in the toilet. So I peed into the sink instead. I didn't care. It's really no fun peeing a couple of feet away from a bat anyway. When I left the bathroom, I started to think, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to bring that bat home and let it live in my bathroom. But it was too late.

About a month earlier, I had started seeing this girl, Hannah. The next evening she came over and we were watching a movie. She got up to use the bathroom and a few moments later I heard a scream. I had forgotten to tell her about the bat. "There's a bat in your bathroom!" she screamed. I explained the situation and told her that she just shouldn't turn on the light, be noisy or make sudden movements. In the long run she convinced me to keep the bat in a box in the bathtub, at least if she was expected to use the bathroom. The bat didn't like that. In fact, the bat didn't like much of anything, I think. Not even me and I was just trying to help the little guy. Whenever I came home, he would start screeching at me. Forget using my own bathroom--I just didn't feel comfortable in there with that bat and his horrible attitude. Still, I felt sorry for him. His wing was hurt and he couldn't really fly. He could lunge and strike alright, but not fly. Days turned into weeks. Slowly my friends stopped coming around. They said the bat was mean and they didn't like the way the bat treated me. They said, "All he ever does is drink milk, eat bugs, and complain." It was true. He did drink a lot of my milk--but what was I supposed to do? He couldn't fly! He needed me!

On one particularly hot night I opened the outside door to get a cross breeze going. I cooled down and fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning I was shocked to discover that my little bat had left! As quickly as he had come into my life, he had left me. Alone. I realized my friends had been right. He didn't respect me. That bat didn't care about me one bit. He was just using me for milk and a place to stay. It all became so clear!

My life is better now without the bat. But still, on a dark night when I'm peeing, I think of him, and how he used to scare the crap out of me when I'd go to the bathroom. Sometimes I wonder what he's doing out there--if he's flying around catching bugs and sleeping in a cave, or if he took up some hobby, like kite making or floral arrangement to occupy his time. I guess I will never know.