Today is going to be better than yesterday.

Today, I got up, went downstairs to the bathroom, and uhm… that was it. And by the way, I’m appreciating the small things.

Yesterday, I got up, went downstairs to the bathroom, and HOLY SHIT, A BAT!!!

You know that thing where you just get a glimpse of a shadow going by? Well, I fully expected to find a moth, or maybe something my wayward cat had done.

Nope. There is a bat the size of an airplane* swooping back and forth across the large room in the basement, and since the ceilings are just a little low, that means chest-level swooping. Bat! Bat, bat, BAAAAT!!!

How big, exactly, is my basement? No idea, but definitely not big enough for both of us.

I went back in the bathroom and shut the door for some bat-free alone-time to think about my options.

So, here’s the bat game-plan: Turn off all of the lights in the house, turn on the porch light, and open the doors so that the bat has a clear path to getting out.

The only problem is that in order to get to the door, you have to walk past the bat. Who is swooping in a way that you really couldn’t avoid him, if you tried.

Okay. So, he’ll just have to avoid you. Have faith in the bat.

Faith in the bat? Yes. Faith in the bat.

So, I got up a little nerve, looked straight ahead, and walked across the basement.

And the bat did avoid me. I was proud of him. Good non-blood sucking, non-rabid wild animal of a non-man-eating variety. Thank you for not biting my face off.**

Lights out. Lights out. I opened the door, and the bat flew out. It really was that simple. Like watching Eddie Munster leave for college. Getting a little tear in my eye, now. The whole process took about two minutes, and most of that was me debating whether I could walk across the basement.

I was actually able to do the whole thing without waking anyone else up.

*a very small airplane. Let’s say a sparrow-sized airplane. It still counts. Size doesn’t matter.

**This is a horrible stereotype. Bats mostly eat insects and fruit, they are vital for their ecosystems, and relatively few of them carry rabies or vampirism. I know this. It is science-y. I watched too many horror movies as a kid.