It seems as if I am going to experience every interesting thing I could possibly experience while I'm here, starting with all the negative ones. :) Allow me to elaborate.
Since Sunday night a week ago, I have been hearing sounds in the night. A little "cheep, cheep, cheep" sound, and a bumping sound. I had attributed the cheeping sound to insects. Hungarians have never heard of window screens it seems, so everyone's windows are open all the time. Flies are always buzzing in and out, and at night, all kinds of interesting things get in. There are these green iridescent flies that come into my bathroom and hang out on the mirror, mosquitoes by the dozens, and moths. A moth flew out of my refrigerator the other day.
I found these online under "Hungarian insects." I've seen them all plus many more.
The windows, which open like doors, and are about 10 feet high, tend to bang around in the wind, although the bangings are usually accompanied by the creaking of hinges. I had almost decided I had a cricket in my house, but I went to hunt down the little bugger and release him and I couldn't find him, and the sound kept moving around. I finally had to conclude that I was hearing things, although I am not normally someone who hears things that aren't there. It was rather disconcerting. I started to feel like Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchkcock's Suspicion. She wonders is she going crazy, or is Cary Grant really trying to kill her? I kept thinking, "Surely I'm not imagining things? But I must be, what else could be going on?"
So Friday night I had gone to bed and had fallen asleep, but I was awakened by this bumping and banging noise in the back of the apartment. There is a little storage room back there, and the door closes but doesn't latch well, so I thought maybe the wind was knocking it around. I got up and walked down there. My bedroom is at the other end of the house. I have to walk into the living room and then into the kitchen, and then I enter into a small hallway. The bathroom is to my left off the hall and the storage room is at the end of the hall. As I approached it, I noticed the door was rattling. It rattled me! I put my hand up to it, and it felt like something was pushing back at me, and I kept hearing that bumping sound. I had a freakish urge to just push the door closed so it would latch better, and run off, but I thought about the Manly Wade Wellman story Up Under the Attic, and about how he knew if he hadn't faced that thing in the attic it would always be waiting for him, somewhere out there, somewhere in time. I thought about all his heros who say you should never turn your back on evil, or on terrifying things. I always aspired to be as strong as one of his heros. So, I opened the door a tiny crack and looked in, and I saw nothing. So I closed it firmly and went back to bed, not a little unsettled because I felt like I must be coming unhinged if I was imagining things to that extent, a door pushing back at me and all that!
The next evening I was heading out and it occurred to me I should go into the storage room and make sure the window was closed. I opened the door, and lo and behold, a gigantic rodent was laying there with his head smashed in the door frame. I squealed and jumped back. At first I thought it was a rat, and that REALLY freaked me out. I couldn't imagine how a rat could get to the 4th floor when I have to climb 93 steps. I was picturing it climbing up the cable that runs from the alley up the side of the building, and all I could think was, if it can get into the storage room, it could climb into any window in this apartment.
I went back to take another look, and it was the biggest bat I've ever seen.
 |
| Bat at Karlsrhue Zoo |
My bat was much bigger and much blacker and MUCH bulkier than that one up there.
I'm not normally afraid of bats. When they are outside. In fact, Jimmy and I been known to court their presence. It's a known fact if you toss something small up into the air when bats are around they will swoop at it, they will swoop down over pools and ponds for a drink of water, and if you clap your hands they will swoop towards the sound. We do that all the time. I would never intentionally kill a bat, but, perhaps it's a good thing I unwittingly killed it, because if that thing had started swooping around my head at 3AM on a Friday night I really would have hopped the first plane to RDU. In fact, I would have probably camped out at the airport waiting for it. :)
It took me two hours the next afternoon---couldn't handle it in the morning--- to work up the nerve to scoop him into a plastic bag, and I felt a little sad. I wished he was outside swooping around with his friends instead of dead in my apartment. I am NOT including pictures of a dead bat. Sorry guys. Believe me, though, it was huge. It looked like a rat wrapped in cloth. I will include some pictures of a dead chicken I had to deal with in another post. I'll warn the vegetarians first. And can I just say, where's Ozzie when you need him?
Until next time, this is Melinda from lovely downtown Pest signing off!
Update: It's October and I was thinking about my bat again, and I was thinking how sad I was it had to die, but then I was also thinking what would I have done if it had come flying at me from out of the night? That made me recall the scene from the Office where Dwight puts the garbage bag over Meredith's head in order to catch the bat that's look in the office. Here's the link. You're welcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exaY3IDvt4Q
Until later. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment