Two of our children are living in our old house 1/2 mile down the road right now. Harrison is farming with us, and Palmer is on summer break from teaching in Denver. For the past few weeks, they've been complaining of scratching in the walls, a bad odor, and stains on an upstairs closet ceiling. Bats.
Dan is trying to spray, keep the 50-year-old baler working for Harrison's haybale project, deal with (another) truck breakdown, get grain moved, shoot the raccoon the dog has cornered on the front porch...you get the picture.
Dan sometimes complains that everyone expects him to fix everything around here. We do. But that's because he insists on fixing everything: the doorknob, the microwave, the accordion, the baler, the semi. He also feels compelled to weigh in on decisions big and small: how to load the hayrack, how to weed the garden, when to mail my contract, how to mow the headland, when to shut the refrigerator door (now).
Granted, he knows more about this stuff (and certainly CARES more) than the rest of us do. But if he is the hub of the fix-it wheel, it's because he's put himself there.
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So naturally, my kids turned to him to solve the bat problem. But (see paragraph 3) he didn't want to hear about it. They kept talking about it. He told them it wasn't a problem. They said it was.
Then last night, the kids sat in lawn chairs in their yard and counted 35 bats emerging from The Bat Hole on the roof (#COVIDentertainment). Their Internet search told them not every bat will come out each night, but at this time of year, bats in a colony are all mothers with an average of two baby bats apiece. In other words, we have a Major Bat Infestation* on our hands.
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There were a few bats in the old house 15 years ago when we lived there. Once one got into a bedroom and Dan threw out his back trying to capture it under a blanket. It is a traumatic family memory we'd all like to forget. What's going on down there now is a whole new level of Bat Crazy.
Today, confronted with stats from the 35 Bat Exodus, even Dan had to admit something would need to be done. So at lunchtime (while Palmer sunned herself on the back deck), Dan researched Bat Removal.
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Do you know about bats? They are wonderful creatures that eat bugs and deserve our love and affection. But they also create mounds of guano (great word to know for crossword puzzles) and loads of piss that will destroy your house from the attic down if the residence incurs a Major Bat Infestestation.*
I will not go into the details of Bat Removal, though you're welcome to read about it here.
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What you need to know for now is that no quick, cheap, easy Bat Removal methods exist, and the slow, expensive, complicated methods must be done outside of the protected "mothering season" of summer, when Bat Mothers are tending their Bat Babies, and removing the mothers causes the babies to basically turn into wall-crawling vampires, serving up histoplasmosis and rabies to all within their path (something like that).
None of this calmed Dan in his agitated mood. He shouted at Palmer on the deck, telling her to "get in here" and look at a site he had pulled up.
She snipped, "SAY 'PLEASE.'"
He didn't.
She left.
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Then Dan snapped.
"How long are your parents going to be here?" He (loudly!) wanted to know.
I know this doesn't make sense. How did we go from Bats to Parents in the Basement?
Similar to my plunger snap two days ago, there was an invisible buildup to this moment.
Dan misses his cozy basement recliner and TV. He likes to pick up his OWN mail from the mailbox at noon, rather than find that my parents have shoved it under the dusty doormat (as he had moments before his snap). He's a bit jealous of all the time I spend with my folks. And if the old house is unsafe to live in (that dang histoplasmosis), shouldn't our kids move into our basement (currently occupied by you know who)?
Mostly, like all of us, he is sick and tired of COVID-19, manifested by the two benign nonagenarians in our basement.
At this point in our well-volumed "conversation," the clock struck noon, meaning (you guessed it!) time to feed my parents! I threw their pizza and green beans (and fresh plums!) on a tray and headed to the basement.
As is often the case, they were oblivious to the time and were happily reading the paper. The table wasn't set. I plopped the tray on their table and said, "Enjoy your lunch!" then left without helping them prepare for the meal.
This was the first time in their 87 days here that I have not made sure they had their milk poured, their silverware in place, their condiments aligned. I know they managed fine without me, and they may not have even noticed my lack of attention. But I did.
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Tonight as I'm writing this, I got a text exchange from my kids:
Enough.
I said ENOUGH.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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