Die Fledermaus - Update

Last evening, as I finished reading a chapter of By the Shores of Silver Lake (the chapter on the black ponies, if anyone is interested) to the eight year old, I looked up to discover that a bat was flying about in the little dressing room off the master bedroom of Orgle Manor while the cats look'd at each other with a wild surmise - silent, by the dressing room door.

Sigh.

The room -an architectural oddity - is about five by twelve with a pair of skylights plus a pair of windows. The bat was swooping back and forth between the two skylights, evidently puzzled by what it had got itself into. Skooshing the cats away, I went into the room, opened both the windows, grabbed the lid of the wicker laundry hamper as a shield and, after several fruitless attempts, finally persuaded the little chap to exit stage left via one of the windows.

This is two bats in the house in just over a week, which leads me to believe that the first one didn't just blunder in, but that they are nesting somewhere (probably up under the roof). Oh, well - it sure beats the infestation of hornets in the backyard last summer. Nonetheless, I suppose I had better call somebody to deal with it.

The eight year old watched my bat-corralling activities with every sign of delight. The very first thing I said to her when it was gone was, "Please don't tell your mother about this," my motive being simply to preserve the Missus from unnecessary stress. And of course, the very first thing the gel did when she got the chance was - - tell her mother about this.

Double sigh.

Truthiness is all well and good in itself, but it's evident that we're going to have to work on the gentle art of discretion at some point, too. Or to quote from the lyrics to the old Mad About You theme, "Tell me all your secrets and I'll tell you most of mine."

(BTW, in the Homer Nods category, in my last post about bats in the house I told an anecdote (since removed) about the Mother-in-Law, bats and moving houses which, I have since been informed, I completely fouled up. In fact, there was no connection between the latter two. Sorry about the misinformation - my bad.)