I am... BATMAN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEx9r5enZsk&feature=related

The following is NSFW for people with bat phobias.

So, I was sitting downstairs, playing Disgaea 3, last Thursday night a little after nine, when I heard my wife yell - "Chris, get up here right NOW!"

That usually means someone is either bleeding to death or is in other mortal peril.

I race upstairs to find her outside the girls' room. "What's wrong?"

"There's a bat in the girls' room!"

And sure enough, there's a little bat hanging on the edge of the fan near the ceiling. Apparently my 4 year old pointed it out to my wife about thirty seconds earlier - "What's that black thing on my fan?"

"That's a switch, honey."

"No, mommy, what's that black thing?"

"That's a bat!"

Fast forward to me coming upstairs. The bat's about the size of my palm. My wife is not in complete freak-out mode, but I can see the white of her eyes and if I don't come up with a plan in the next sixty seconds, there will be trouble in River City.

We usher the older one out of the room and she gets the baby out of the crib. I go downstairs, get some work gloves and a small trashcan with a removeable lid as well as a step ladder. I close the door to the girls' room and trap it between the trashcan and the ceiling. My reasoning is twofold - a.) I don't want to chase this sucker around with a broom for an hour and b.) I don't want to clean up bat blood/brains off the floor and the walls.

Of course, the little squeaker starts freaking out. I slid the lid across the top, between the celing and the can, and before I completely close it, it stops squeaking. All I can think is, "Great, I have an asphyxiated bat squished between the lid and the can", but he wasn't trapped, thank goodness.

He's chucked out the front door, can and all while we get the 2 million candlewatt flashlight to disorient him some more. I dump him out on the lawn and he starts squeaking some more while I go back into the house and check on the family.

Everyone is fine, both girls have fallen asleep on our bed and they're tossed back where they belong for the night, which goes without further incident. My wife felt obligated to get Stella Luna from a friend to have a "friendly bat" story to read.

I assume it got through the chimneys, which, like the house are over a hundred years old.

I think I took two steps up on the "hero ladder" in my wife's eyes that night. I'm already an imperious, heroic figure in my four year-old's eyes, or at least, still a heroic figure.

I asked Christy later if I had been on-call or out of town whether they would have all slept in our bed, and she just looked at me and said, "Are you kidding, of course! I would have waited for the exterminator the next day!"