Sunday, May 13, 2007

A Night to Remember


A few days ago, Lucy and I put the bedroom window AC in.

It's the sure sign of summer; Neither of us particulary likes AC in general, but we share a love of a frozen, heavily-blanketed, white-noised-out bedroom. Ah, sleep.

The AC has led to some deep slumber of late (despite my chronic sleeplessness).

Last night was a weird one, though, even by my standards. After an action-packed dinner (Dudley's with the Points, and a great variety of Prom attendees, one of whom found a spider in her salad and produced the most amazing wide-eyed expression of panic/lunacy on her face that I've nearly ever seen), a couple of drinks with folks at Atomic Café (the restaurant who's 'you-guys-can't-do-a-damned-thing-for-me' reputation continued to soar when I ordered a Blue Hawaiian, and was asked by our server if I could tell the bartender how to make one; C'mon! This place claims to be a Caribbean restaurant!?! I just don't get it)

After that, Lu and I returned home to turn in, and just as I settled down with The Best American Non-required Reading 2006, it became quite apparent that there is a bat in the room—apparent, due to—you know—the swooping and flying and circling.
Which led to a probably 45-minute ordeal where I did the "Git baat! Out the door, bat! Giiit!" thing, waving assorted things in the air as—you know—a message of "git and good will." Meanwhile, Lucy alternately cowered and slept beneath previously-mentioned massive covers. Finally, summoning nearly every ounce of courage in my possesssion, I smacked a shoe box over Ms. Bat (I had the feeling it was a girl) and stood on a chair with a squealing bat under a shoe box, against the wall of our bedroom, while Lucy went to get me a LP record to slide underneath of it. I was exhausted and defiant at this point, too, leading to exchanges like the following:
Lucy: "I wonder if piece of cardboard would work?"
Mick: (defiant, sulky) "I WANT AN ALBUM."
Finally, she brought me Lily Tomlin.

A few squealing minutes later, the bat, the box and Lily Tomlin all made a hasty exit out the upstairs window, followed by the frantic and immediate slamming of the window. If that bat had flown back in, I might have started crying. I assume the box and Lily are in the driveway.

After The Batcave, I returned to my book, Lucy to sleep… done right? Oh, so-not-done. As I said earlier, we had eaten magnanimously and had a reasonable number of cocktails… hours before. And I was, admittedly, not feeling too good. Some kind of mixture of copious amounts of food, some alcohol, and I suppose 47 shotglasses of adrenaline. And lying there, I started to hear that little voice that you hear sometimes that says: "You will feel much better if you throw up, don't you think? Oh, by the way, this isn't a suggestion; it's more of a casual order." Which did come to pass, and I'll leave it at that.

Food poisoning? Too much to drink? What? I don't know. I can't remember the last time I threw up. Dinner was totally delicious (though I did eat too much) and cocktails were a couple. I remain baffled by the barfing. After all that, I went to bed, totally exhausted and dreamt a very weird dream. Which I will tell you about next time.

6 comments:

Wyn said...

Perhaps your first sign of illness was thinking that a Caribbean restaurant ought to know how to make a Hawaiian drink...

I'm such a nerd...

lolliloobedoo said...

The best way to remove a bat is with a broom, don't you know!

Kenn Minter said...

I like a good story that ends with puking.

I remember in creative writing class... in college... they'd always say, "Can't find an ending to yer story? Have one of yer characters throw up. Can't be beat."

Good story.

Unknown said...

next time try throwing little tiny wads of paper out the window--the bat's sonar will sense the paper, think it's a bug, and follow it. Or at least that's the theory.

Anonymous said...

it was all a dream.

Unknown said...

omg...I CANNOT BELIEVE LUCY COULD SLEEP WITH A BAT IN THE ROOM...she is way braver than this scrappy new yorker is. Bats getting tangled in my hair is one of my top 5 fears. Speaking of bats & NY-ers, I had to explain to my sweet other 1/2 what they were the 1st time we saw them after returning in the dark after a day of hiking. A life-long city dweller, he thought they were NIGHT BIRDS!