This is a bat.

This is Robert looking for a bat in our basement. Facing his worst fear… on his way to becoming……

a superhero.

This is Robert holding a captured bat, (see above) and one of the tools used to capture the bat. (We also used salad tongs – more on that later.) Why look for and capture bats you might ask…..

In the last month we have seen 3 bats in our house. 2 were in the basement. Twice, as Robert and I were reading in bed (actually on the folded out futon in the basement because of house guests) what we thought was a large moth began circling the room. It wasn’t a moth. Upon realization of its true identity, I hid under the covers, and Robert watched to see where it might land. Both times we ended up running out of the room though, in fear, only to return and not be able to locate the bat. (I’m sure no house guests will ever argue with us about sleeping in our room again!)

Sunday morning after everyone had left early for church I hopped in the shower to get ready myself. Afterwards, I pulled the shower curtain aside and saw a bat hanging on the wall of the bathroom. I “freaked” – for lack of a more descriptive term. I called Robert to come home from church and catch the bat. Now, we knew you needed to catch the bat so that you could take it in for rabies testing, because friends of ours just had this experience, but they chased their bat out the door and then ended up having to get rabies shots for the entire family since the bat had been upstairs near their children for an unknown amount of time. (Their are a couple of cases in which children have been bitten unaware and later died.) We would learn from their mistake.

So Batman (Robert) bravely covered the bat with a small fishing net and called on me to get salad tongs in order to pull it from the wall. He then brought it to the floor where I placed a small Rubbermaid container over it. We tilted it upright with the lid in place, Robert pulled the net out, and we secured the lid, and then duct taped it all around and poked breathing holes in the top. Gotta keep the bat alive for proper testing. Gotta at least keep the brain intact, because this is what is actually tested for signs of rabies. I went from hysterical tears to hysterical laughter the entire time.

I skipped church and drove the bat to the vet.

Animal control said call the Pediatrician immediately. I did and she said go straight to the emergency room for RABIES SHOTS! She said “Why incubate rabies for three days while you wait for bat brain test results?” She said anytime a bat has been near sleeping children, the only prudent thing to do is get the shots. The disease is always fatal.

So the Krumrey family spent the afternoon in the emergency room getting shots. Because the dosage is by weight Robert got 5, I got 4, Kory and Cooper got 3, and Kayla got 2. And we will have to return 4 more times for 1 shot each time. (The shots were not given in the stomach, but where they were given will not be mentioned here. Let’s just say the 2 nurses felt intimately acquainted with the Krumreys after it was all over.) And Kory did not faint.

Today the vet called and said that the rabies testing is free, but that I needed to pay for overnight refrigerated shipping to Boston for the bat! I asked if we could cancel, since we are on our way to immunity, but she said it had already been shipped.

I went back to the vet today and wrote a check for $50.

Pray this saga does not continue.