The Elixir and the chapter in the book are finished. I’m not.
Staring blankly at towels, my mind begins to wander off, an unsupervised three-year-old in a well-stocked supermarket, meandering back to conversations of years ago. (Aisle 15, for those of you with maps.)
We, the stalwart employees, are gathered around the coffee maker, still 20 minutes before the “Unlocking of the Doors” or, as it was sometimes called on Mondays, “The Storming of the Barbarians”. As usual, the verities and the balderdash are growing with each swig of Elixir.
The topic turns toward bats, (the ”mammalian” kind - not the “hardwood” kind). We swapped “bat stories”, giving Ms. J the opening she needed to enlighten us all.
Ms. J lives in the generational home somewhat out in the woods. Over the years it has been added onto, growing like a living thing, stoically keeping the snow off its infestation known as Ms. J’s family.
“I get up in the middle of the night”, she says, “ and begin bouncing off the hallway walls, half-asleep, to get to our bathroom.” She takes a quick pull from her styrofoam cup, reliving the moment.
“I reach down with one hand to flip up the cover while looking up to flip on the light switch.” A little shudder goes through her.
“Thank God I flipped on the light first. When I look back, there is a bat. Lying in the toilet bowel. On its back. Holding itself out of the water with its wings. And it’s not happy.”
We’re stunned. Bat-in-the-house, bat-in-the-garage, bat-in-the-hair. We’ve heard those.
But bat-in-the-bowl . . . that’s a new one.
She goes on to describe the situation. She stands there, a malfunctioning scream stuck in her throat. The bat, feeling foolish and vulnerable, hisses away, trying to avoid bat-tism. (Sorry.)
Then the remembrance of why she was there in the first place joined the party.
“I made my decision,” she says as she looks around with narrowed, steely eyes, never once realizing the pun, “It’s “go” time!”
Ms. J proved that with the proper tool, (in this case a TurboPro toilet plunger), and an overdosing of adrenaline, bats are indeed flushable and are basically inept at swimming back upstream. Ever.
What a story, eh?
I wander out into the kitchen, replenish the cup with Elixir, and pause to look out the window.
Huh.
Bats, like temptations, show up in some unexpected places. Good places. Private places.
And I guess that’s why we need the Light, that Lamp for our paths, to show us when “bats” show up.
Imagine if Ms. J had just gone by her “feelings”, leaving the light off, choosing the dark.
Imagine that Emergency Room conversation.
“Your problem, m’am? You were bit where? . . . uh-huh. Doing what? . . . oh."
M’am, I’m going to have you breathe into this little tube. It’s just a test. “
("psst, Sally - call Security!)”
Maybe letting the Light illumine everything would make it pretty hard for the “bats” to bite.
Unless, of course, I’m dumb enough to pet them.