There's a bat on ice on my front porch

Yes, you read that right.

Anna came downstairs crying tonight saying "Dad, there's a bat or something on my bed!!" I was certain that she was incorrect and overreacting. This is way past Heidi's comfort zone so it fell to me to go investigate. Sure as shootin', there's a bat on her headboard bookcase. It looked pretty dead to me, but still. I have to admit, that bats are outside even my comfort zone, but it was time to, as my brother would say, man up and take care of the problem. I got an empty ice cream bucket from the basement to go up and trap it. I was nervous that as soon as I tried to scoop it in there, it would take off flying. Fortunately, it didn't move a muscle as I shoved it into the bucket and put the lid on. Then I put the bucket in a cooler with ice packs and put the whole thing on the porch.

I called Iowa Public Health as I couldn't remember if there's a time frame in which you must test a bat for rabies after it's died. They called me back and were very pleasant. They said that the way I describe it, it doesn't meet their criteria as a human exposure, but if I want to have it tested, I'm certainly more than welcome to take it to Iowa State and pay somewhere between $35 and $50 for it. This is absolutely happening. There's no way of knowing if there was any exposure to us - chances are VERY slim that there was any kind of bite that took place, although bat bites are so small you can be bitten in your sleep and not know it. The last time this happened to us (2002), Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Health both discouraged me from having it tested. I bucked both of them and took it to the disease lab in Iowa City.

The shithead was rabid. We all got the rabies series, which contrary to popular belief is not 82 shots into your stomach or your penis. It's a 5 dose series in your deltoid, but still, fun times.

So you can see why I don't mess around with bats and guessing whether they may or may not have rabies. As I am so fond of saying when it comes to rabies, you guess wrong and you guess DEAD. That is not hyperbole or overreaction. It's the truth.

The fortunate thing is that even in the unlikely event that we all have to get rabies shots again, its an abbreviated course of 2 shots which is still 2 shots too many for Anna's taste. But this is one area where I am immovable.

We are behind on Blair's rabies vaccination through an oversight on our part. So he's going in to the vet as well tomorrow morning, no questions.

Suddenly, I'm very glad I traded into the evening shift tomorrow because my morning is going to be full up, as Tinky Winky might say.

However, at least we have new Bananarama to listen to tonight to balance out this bat ridiculousness.

(image via)