Take That, Bat

As NPH saw the wife out the door and down the third floor hallway of our apartment building this morning, we were greeted by a pleasant man wielding a broom and a bucket. "Did you see the bat?" he asked us.

Awesome.

He made a couple of lengths of the hallway whilst I stood with my back to my apartment door, checking over my shoulders to be sure the devilish creature wasn't cozily perched above me. The coast appeared clear, and just as the batcatcher and I were speculating (with some relief) that it must have flown out the ceiling vent, up it came from the stairwell below me. It flapped its wings, made a pass at my head, and then made for the opposite end of the hallway.

It got past the broom-wielding handyman once, at which point he yelled out to me, "Have you got a tennis racquet?" Nope. Only a racquetball racquet. Still fluttering, the bat made the fateful mistake of trying to circle back around the handyman, and one lusty swipe of the broom sent it down. He lay motionless, with his wings folded in upon itself, upon the new red carpet.

The handyman used a towell to pick it up, then dropped it into his bucket. I asked, "How many bats you got in that bucket?"

"Just one," he said, smiling triumphantly, as he strode down the stairs.