Karen and the bat

[mystories]

One evening, I was reading in bed with my sweetie at the time, whom I'll call "Karen". I noticed some movement in my peripheral vision and looked up, to see a bat fluttering around the room. Apparently my expression changed, as Karen asked me, "What?" "There's a bat in the room," I explained, "look up." She looked up, squeaked, and pulled the covers over herself. "Get rid of it!", she commanded. "How?", I said. The bat certainly looked harmless to me, I guessed it had blundered in via the chimney, as I had not closed the damper after the last fire. "Shoo it away!", she told me. I doubted this would work, bats are very acrobatic, and their sonar lets them avoid objects as fine as spiderwebs. But I gamely stood up and waved my hand around where the bat was flying. The bat effortlessly avoided me, and continued to flutter around. "That's not going to work", I explained, calmly. "DO SOMETHING!" ordered Karen. So I went down the hall, opened the window, came back, pulled a blanket off the bed, and used the blanket to progressively block off sections of the room, then the hallway, so the bat's erratic path tended to lead it down the hall, and, eventually, out the window. I closed the window, climbed back into bed, picked up my book, and continued reading.