Yes, I do have cats. But they’re decorator cats good for nothing but draping themselves across the furniture looking good. It would no more occur to them to chase the mouse, bite the mouse, kill the mouse, eat the mouse than it does to me.

Me? I put out rat poison in ramekins strategically and safely placed. It works like a charm. It should be just the matter of a day or so before my new tenant is no longer with me. I used to catch and release them, but then I discovered it was less than 12 hours before they were back in the house. Now I kill the suckers. I’m not generally a poison kind of person, but I do, yes I do, loathe mice.

Life in the barn can be exciting given that I live in the midst of a forest. All kinds of creatures lurk about. The barn is a little more airtight than it used to be, but there are still lots of nooks and crannies where they can get in. However, it’s ever so much better than it was The Night of the Bat.

Picture this: I’m lying in bed next to The Ex in that peaceful nirvana between wide awake and deep sleep. It’s been a brutally hot day. But now it’s midnight and the un-airconditioned house is cooling off. To call it a house is a ridiculous overstatement. At that point, the barn was still very much a barn. We had walls upstairs, but the only room with a door was the bathroom. Bear that in mind, it’s important.

I am just about to drift off. In the process of rolling over, I discover there’s a hot, furry something sleeping on the sheet draped across my belly.

I do what any sane person would do. I brushed it off, leapt out of bed shrieking, while something, later established as a bat, darted and swooped about the bedroom. The Ex was a light sleeper, but even if he hadn’t been, my screaming would have easily woke him.

Chef Boy ‘R Mine was a wee thing and I woke him with my banshee cries. I did what any mother would do, I took off at run, snatched the kid out of the crib, and made a run for the bathroom. The last glimpse I had of The Ex was he, completely nude, running about the bedroom with a tennis racquet. I have no idea why we had a tennis racquet in the bedroom. (A few years later, he would use the same racquet to stand in the yard, swinging it to and fro, muttering Cicada Anyone? as we suffered through the 17-year locusts. I’m not sure the racquet was ever used for its intended purpose.)

I cowered in the bathroom cradling the now crying child. Through the door we could hear The Ex yell, “Die you [expletive deleted], die!” and the sound of the racquet slamming against walls, floors, furniture. The battle raged for quite a while. Both the child and I calmed down. We sat there in companionable silence listening to the mayhem, curses, and racquet whacks. Occasionally, we startled at a particularly forceful whack.

Finally, there was silence. I heard The Ex go down the stairs. I heard him come up the stairs. I heard some scraping. “It’s dead, you can come out now.” And there he was: naked, sweaty, flustered, a little disoriented and holding a dustpan with a dead bat in it. Triumphant.

I’ve learned an appreciation of bats since then and feel bad that this one ended up dead. While working at the university with an office on the the third floor of the oldest building, I often shared my office with a lost bat. The maintenance crew would come and shoo it out and I would go back to working alone. I’ve come a long way. I’m glad there’s not a bat in my house, but I really loathe mice. Those suckers are going to die and I will show no remorse.