We have two cats, Jane and Gilda, that deserve a lot of respect given that they are about a million years old and probably should have died about ten times by now. (See what I did there?)

My favorite thing about cats is how they keep the joint varmint-free. When we lived in Virginia, the occasional mouse would find its way in. Jane would catch it and play handball with it until Gilda would get fed up with this tomfoolery, come over, kill the thing with one swipe, and go back to bed, leaving Jane all “WTF?!” and me all squicked out about having to clean up the mess.

But this story is about their predecessor, Shays. It is from 2008. Shays had a bad habit of attacking our feet while we slept, so we kept her banished to the living room and kitchen by way of some strategically placed and always closed doors.

So here is the scene: The hubs had a late work event, and I had gone ahead and battened down everything for the evening. The kid was asleep in his bed. I was asleep in mine. The hubs got home, came upstairs, we had a short half-conscious-on-my-end conversation, and he headed back downstairs to eat and putter.

And I heard: “Jesus H. Christ!!!”

Only it wasn’t preceded or followed by any loud bangs or shattering glass, and then I heard him slam the doors that close off the living room at a rate rather faster than his usual speed.

Muttering a “WTF?” of my own, I got up and pattered downstairs and found him in the hallway, hand on the doorknob, where he informed me:

“There’s a bird in our house.”

“Huh?”

“THERE’S A BIRD IN OUR HOUSE. How did you not see this thing?”

“Errrr… it wasn’t in our bedroom? I was asleep? it wasn’t in here before I went to bed?” And then my brain whirred a little bit. “A bird? Are you sure it’s not a bat?”

“Pretty sure it’s a bird. And YOUR stupid cat is just sitting in there. She couldn’t care less … oh, wait, now she sees it.”

At this point I was standing behind him, so all I saw is the back of his dress shirt and a teeny bit of the living room ceiling as he peeked through a slit in the doorway.

Then he abruptly turned and shouldered past me. “Well, whatever it is, I’ll go open the kitchen door.” He exits through the front door and eventually I hear him open the back one.

In his absence, it was my turn to peek through the living room doors, and sure enough, something was very busy flapping away around our living room and breakfast nook. I still thought it might be a bat, but countless sparrows had gotten trapped in our garage over the years, so it seemed possible one could zing from there into our kitchen, especially as much as our kid left doors open. Also, I had not had much occasion to observe the flying habits of birds inside houses, so I couldn’t be sure.  But this critter did seem to be awfully hyper and not ever alighting anywhere.

Finally, I decided hubs had a point and I should probably keep the door to the upstairs closed. So I followed his steps outside and around the house. I was at the kitchen door and he had moved to the door to our deck.

At this point the whole scenario sort of went Wide World of Sports in my mind.

Annnd, it’s taking another spin around the living room … Makes a fast break left and zips through the kitchen, but retreats back to the living room … Whoops, a misstep there as it thwacks into the fireplace. And it’s heading for the deck door! Ohhh, so close. But it misses and takes another lap.

Etc., etc. I still hadn’t gotten a very good look at the thing, mostly because I’m a shrill shrieky girly-girl when it comes to things skittering around my house at eye-level, but also because it was flying fast enough that it looked like it might hurt if it banged into me (not to mention claws and … beak? teeth?) so I kept reflexively ducking and cringing and wincing whenever it came within 8 feet of me.

I ventured a little farther into the kitchen to see if I could get a better look while it was back in the living room. Just as I said, “That is SO not a bird, it’s a bat!” I saw it slap  into the window. And then there was a flash of white, a flash of dark, and then I heard a very tiny but horrible eek-eek-eeee.

At first I thought it had flown so hard into the window that it had gotten between the curtains and knocked itself out. But no.  Our mighty huntress-cat Shays had finally stretched herself, hopped up onto the couch, and with one slap of a paw, taken the thing out in midair. I saw her hop off the couch, and she was out of my sight.

NYAB called from on the deck, “I think she killed it. She’s got it in her mouth. And yeah, I think it was a bat.”

“Well for god’s sake, don’t distract her, you know how she is. She carries things around in her mouth and then she spits them out and they skibble off again.”

He said, “Erm, not this time. She just dropped it and it’s not moving. Yeah, looks like a bat.”

We met in the kitchen nook and both looked down at the limp little furry ex-rodent while the cat sort of preened and licked her paws, as if to say “Call ME stupid, will you?” Hubs patted her head.

And then my big brave husband got several paper towels and the dustpan and disposed of the body while I danced around on my tiptoes with my shoulders squinched up around my ears and my hands flapping as I sang the “Ew! Ew! Eww!” song.

And then we went to bed, where I didn’t sleep a wink because I kept hearing squeaks and flappy noises.