THE BAT
Thanks to Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and a plethora of other authors, filmmakers and storytellers, the bat is public enemy number one. Afterall, they suck your blood, transmit rabies, and get caught in your hair.
So, when Ian, our eldest son who is home from college, came running into our room at 2:30 one morning, we knew there was trouble brewing.
“Mom! Dad! There’s a bat in the basement!”
“@#$&!” I grumbled.
Bleary-eyed and groggy, Rebecca and I stumbled out of bed and down to the basement. I went down first and saw the poor creature swooping and dipping, zigging and zagging around the room, trying desperately to find a way out of the house or to a dark, secluded corner to hide.
I went upstairs to put on some more suitable clothing for wrangling bats. Ian and Rebecca grabbed tennis rackets, thinking they could assist. It’s a common myth that tennis rackets work with bats. However, unless we had a mist net to trap the bat, there was a greater chance of the tennis rackets breaking lights or other items.
Anyway, when we returned to the basement, the bat was gone. We searched, looking into dark corners, and waiting for it to emerge. Nothing. Frustrated and sleepy, we headed upstairs, locked the basement doors, and vowed to search again later in the day.
THE FLOOD
Within a couple of days, thoughts of the bat slowly faded away as the Wickham household ramped up activities to prepare for Alex’s high school graduation open house. With one week to go, there was a lot to do. We had decided to redo our patio to create a larger entertainment area and there was stone to place, furniture to install and a garage to clear and clean as a staging area for the big event.
We completed placement of the stone Sunday morning and the boys set to the task of clearing and power-washing the garage floor. As evening approached, we decided to go out for dinner, get a good night sleep and hit the ground running Monday morning.
It was more like a splash when I headed to the basement early the next day, planning to get in a five-mile run on the treadmill. Water was everywhere. My first thought was a sewer backup. Fortunately, there was no foul odor, and the pooled water was clear.
“@#$&!,” I screamed in anger, frantically looking around for the source.
Ian came down and we walked and squished our way from one room to another, eventually giving up and setting to the task of salvaging items. When Rebecca and Alex came down to assist, we found the source. The top of the water heater was soaked. Since we could neither see nor hear any running water, we suspected the power-washing was to blame.
One of the boys ran outside while I waited with my smartphone recording. Soon enough there was the whoosh and spray of water coming from a fracture in the pipe leading to the exterior faucet.
The ensuing hours and days were a blur of activity as friends offered assistance and we had ServPro come in to literally mop up the mess that trashed my office, our family room, and countless other items with real or sentimental value.
Rebecca and I were fatigued and ready to throw in the proverbial towel. Alex was dejected.
No one would blame us for postponing the open house. Fortunately, we decided that the show must go one. Rebecca had already uber planned the event, so it was easy to follow her task list and manage the cleanup of the flood. Even the unexpected news that we needed some walls torn out due to mold didn’t faze us, too much.
As Saturday approached and the basement dried out, a sense of relief washed over us. During one of my trips to our fridge to get some water, I noticed a magnet with the saying “Proceed as if success is inevitable.”
That’s how we did it that week. We had a plan, we stuck to the plan and the plan was working.
Until the bee!
THE BEE
Friday was a flurry of activity. We had some extra time, so Ian and Alex gave the deck a fresh coat of solid stain. But while cleaning up the work area, Ian noticed a large bumblebee in distress. Always the lover of wildlife he was afraid it couldn’t flip off its back.
Since I was wearing gloves, I thought I could nudge the bee upright. Instead, it latched on to my forefinger and slammed its stinger through the fabric into my flesh.
“@#$&!,” I yelped in pain.
I’ve never been allergic to bee stings, so I casually walked into the house and treated the wound. I then went back to work.
Saturday. The day of the big event. All was on track. Then I felt my finger tingle. It was twice the size of its twin on the left hand.
Ugh. Off to the emergency clinic where they gave me a shot in the rear that hurt more than the bee sting itself.
When I returned home, Ian informed me that the bee was dead. That left me a bit sad. I didn’t blame the bee. It did what is supposed to do. It defended itself. If I had on my heavy work gloves the outcome might have been different.
THE OPEN HOUSE
This was it. The big event. All the chaos, turmoil and adversity had not deterred us from our plans. Success was imminent. Until one of the little kids stepped on a pile of dog poop.
“@#$&!,” I muttered to myself as I searched for the offending pile.
In the meantime, the boy had wiped off what was visibly clinging to his shoe, but he still seemed dejected and walked around in circles, staring at his foot.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It didn’t all come off,” he responded.
I asked for his shoe, flipped it over and took it inside to clean. A few minutes later, the boy was running down the hill to play with other children.
Disaster averted.
The rest of the open house went off without a hitch. Oh, there was a torch that tipped over, but the liquid stayed in the canister, so we didn’t have any flaming guests.
And, as the sky darkened and our guests left, Rebecca, the boys and I started cleaning up and putting away the food and other items.
Fatigue hit us like a freight train. The week from hell was over. We proceeded as if success was inevitable and won the day. We headed off to bed, victorious.
No one was concerned when Rebecca started coughing.
COVID
The Day After is what I called Sunday while I lounged on the patio reading some articles in Wired magazine.
It’s what I did two years ago after Ian’s open house. We all agreed Sunday was a day of rest. The clean-up work could wait.
In addition to a more persistent cough, Rebecca also sported a headache. She looked at me and asked if I thought she should take a Covid test. I dreaded the idea but knew we needed to inform guests if she was positive.
Fifteen minutes after swabbing her nose and inserting the stick in the rapid test, I saw two solid pink lines. Positive.
“@#$&!,” I sighed in utter sadness.
The next few hours were a blur, making sure Rebecca was comfy in her isolation in our master suite. I relocated to the guest bedroom and made sure the other family members were fine and then I cancelled a business trip I had planned this week and notified guests of Rebecca’s condition.
Similar to my experience with Covid in May, Rebecca’s symptoms are mild. As of this writing, she is feeling better but we both know Covid a tricky virus and some issues – like loss of taste manifest later.
Rebecca insisted I go on the trip, but I insisted on working from home. I won the argument.
BABY
Working from home is not always very productive and I knew that would be the case on Monday. Since my office is a mess because of the flood, I relocated to the first floor, overlooking the redone patio.
While not offering the same amenities as my office, it allowed me to be within earshot of Rebecca if she needed something and I could hear the home health aid when she arrived to give Rebecca’s mom a sponge bath.
At about 9 a.m. the dogs went nuts and I heard someone trying to enter through the garage door. I opened the door to see a home health aide standing there. This wasn’t Marie, the regular aide who helps my mother-in-law.
“Hi, I’m Hailey. This is my first day on the job.”
I led her to my mother-in-law’s suite and introduced Hailey to Mary. I returned to my makeshift office.
A half hour later, Hailey came out and asked if someone named Gloria lived here. I said no one with that name lived here, but there was one down the street.
The aide nodded and said she had to call here boss.
“@#$&!,” I said to no one in particular. “The aide went to the wrong house.”
In fact, the aide wasn’t with the same group that employed Marie. I gave Hailey directions, we laughed about the screw up and I went to talk with Mom about here unexpected visitor.
As we chatted and laughed about the encounter, Mom said, “She kept calling me Baby.”
Puzzled, I asked what prompted Hailey to call her Baby.
“She started calling me Gloria and I told her my name is Mary and from then on she called me Baby.”
“Oh my,” I said. “I wonder how Gloria will react when Hailey calls her Baby.”
EPILOGUE
Life has a way of imitating art. I say that because the past 10 or so days have felt like series of episodes on the Twilight Zone. They have been a rollercoaster ride ranging from the surreal to the sublime.
I often wondered if I was dreaming or having a nightmare, hoping that someone would pinch me and wake me up. If the bee sting couldn’t do it, I must be experiencing these events in the real world.
But there are so many unanswered questions from these events.
Where did the bat go? Did it find a way out of the house?
How did the water snake around and through some areas of the basement, devastating some fragile items while inexplicably avoiding others?
Why did one of our dogs drop a big pile of poop on the main path the guests took to the patio? Did she want to dissuade them from visiting?
Why did Hailey keep saying Baby instead of Mary?
These are not questions that will reshape political discourse or solve social issues. They are mostly inconsequential, except for the bat.
“Where did the @#$&! bat go?”
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