Chuck and I were having a lovely brunch on the terrace, enjoying the breeze and watching the sun glint off the ocean. Pretty much an idyllic morning here in Paradise. Suddenly, Reku jumped up and back pedalled so quickly he almost tripped over his own feet. I looked at Chuck, puzzled, wondering if he knew what was bothering Reku. He thought perhaps something had bitten him. But Reku wasn't looking at himself. He was staring intently behind me. I followed his gaze, and there, right behind my chair, was a bat. And Tasha was trying to make friends with it.

My reaction was instinctual and immediate. I yelled, “holyf*ckinsh*titsabat!” while simultaneously beginning the leap that would take me straight from my chair to inside the house. I swear my feet never touched the ground in between. Halfway through the leap, I started to call the dogs to me. Reku came instantly, but Tasha was reluctant to leave her new friend.

Once I was inside and had both dogs firmly by the collar, I waited for Chuck to get in before slamming the door. We breathed half a sigh of relief before our eyes fell on the open windows. One of us was going to have to stick our arm onto the terrace to get a hold of the windows and close them. I elected Chuck.

Intellectually, I am not afraid of bats. I understand their place in the ecosystem. I love watching them swoop around the streetlights at night, eating up insects. I marvel at the zoo while looking at them through a nice, thick piece of safety glass. But it is a totally different situation when I am looking at the fuzzy brown thing 8 inches from my own bare foot.

Chuck had taken the time to examine the bat before coming inside. He didn't see any obvious damage, but the thing was no longer moving. Perhaps Tasha had frightened it to death in her eagerness. Chuck went to get a shovel to scoop it up and dispose of it. I guarded the door. From the inside.

Chuck returned with the shovel and marched resolutely outside. The bat wasn't dead. Not even a little. And it certainly did not like the shovel idea. It kept screeching and biting it. We didn't want to be the ones that frightened it to death. We didn't want to hurt it at all. So much for plan A.

Chuck came back in, brandishing the shovel behind him, and we consulted the Great Oracle, Google. Common wisdom seems to be that most bats cannot take flight from the ground, and the terrace walls are too smooth for it to climb, so it was stuck. To help set the poor little guy free, we were supposed to offer him a towel to climb, then dangle the towel over the edge of the balcony so he could fly away. I elected Chuck.

Again, Chuck went out onto the terrace, this time with a full-sized, green, bath towel as his weapon. He offered the end of the towel to the bat. The bat didn't want it. Finally, with a little bit of shovel encouragement, the bat climbed the towel like a good little bat. Chuck dangled the towel over the balcony, then hurried back inside (where I was guarding the door) before the bat could do something really awful like fly into his face. We both stood at the window and watched as the bat climbed back up the nice, soft towel, curled up in the sun, and settled in for a long nap. Evidently we made a home for it.

Back to the Great Oracle. What everyone failed to mention in their bat removal instructions is that under no circumstances do bats fly during the day. So it became a waiting game. All day long the bat snuggled and slept. At dusk, we watched in anticipation. The bat snuggled and slept. Sometime after full dark, the bat flew away. We missed it. We hope he is back with his family and friends and doesn't plan any return visits.