But I was, this past weekend.
Not the baseball kind-- the animal kind. (Ahh, the imprecision of language!)
Early Sunday morning I was half asleep and vaguely aware of the cats racing and clunking around the house. Probably chasing a mouse, I thought. A usual occurrence in our old house. But when one of the cats barreled up the staircase onto my bed in hot pursuit of said "mouse" I thought... "Damn cat! There'll be no mice in this bed!" And bolted upright...
... only to be smacked in the face with the creature she was chasing. It was no mouse! It swooped back and forth and around a few times before hubby managed to whoosh it toward the bathroom with a towel and slam the door.
It was a bat.
Bad news-- bats can carry rabies.
And I had a nifty little scratch down my cheek.
Good news-- we'd all had the complete set of rabies vaccine about 3 or 4 years ago after a similar incident of bat-in-house. (Even though we were sure no one had come in contact with it, but our family doctor had said-- "Get thyselves to the emergency room this instant." They take it seriously. Rabies has a 100% fatality rate. Would you take a chance?)
Good news-- Hubby caught the bat and we've sent it off to be tested.
Bad news-- They have to kill it in order to do that. I actually feel badly for him. I like bats!
Pain-in-the-Neck news-- I spent 3 hours in the ER only for them to tell me they'd wait to hear the results before giving me booster shots, since I already supposedly have some protection. (Though nobody seems to know how long the vaccine is good for...)
Good news-- We'll hear the results in a day or two. And the shots really aren't too bad if we have to get them. Unlike the old days, when they gave them in the stomach. (Ack!)
Let's just hope everybody knows what they're doing...
Here's a not-so-great shot of the little critter:
