Bat Man and Robin?

I fill the pitcher again. I am anxious to get things rolling but I think I need to appease the Gods of Have No Right To Ask For A Favor This Heinous first.

Karl and his shit-eating grin take a seat wedged between me and Kate on the step. It is clear that he feels like a celebrity. A superhero. The BMOC.

Karl tells us that this was his second distress call about a bat today.  The first Mayday came from a lesbian he knows in the neighborhood. He told her she was on her own.  Kate and I evidently have much more appeal  as non-lesbians, not that anyone's sexual preferences are up for discussion.

Karl wants to see the bat.  I volunteer to show Karl the cat/bat demonstration.

We walk in tiptoeing like Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits. We turn the corner. Trinket is posted on a chair looking intense.

Not wanting to seem like a nut I don't actually engage Trinket in conversation this time. Instead I look where she is looking...staring down The Beast.  At the stone fireplace surround.  At first I see nothing and I think I am going to have to Dr. Doolittle my way through this. Then I discern a  twitch. The bat is clinging to the stone corner of the fireplace. I point it out to Karl.  Somehow without shrieking.

"Eeeww, " he says. "Yep, there he is."  And then after a moment, "What's in his mouth?"

With these words I am on the run again.  One flying rodent is enough. If it has now caught itself another I may just have a stroke.

Karl stops me. "Oh, it's nothing to be worried about. It just looks like he caught something. He's just covered in dust balls."

Clearly, while in her pursuit of the bat, Trinket has mopped under all of Charlotte's beds with it.

Still, I am beginning to pit out again. I suggest more beer.  Like a moth to a flame, Karl follows me out.

We join Kate again. She's refilled the pitcher. "So,  Karl. No butterfly net. You've called Bo and his gun. What does it shoot? The bat IS inside the house."

I am picturing a shotgun.   "Yes, Karl. Remember that this is my sister's house. Not a hunting blind."

"Well I fix everything in the house anyway so if something doesn't go exactly as planned, or is shot to smithereens, I can fix it right up."

Oh good. We'll never get rid of him. I am beginning to feel nice and warm inside toward the bat. Maybe we should let it stay? I am sure Charlotte would prefer that her house not be reduced to splinters. I suppose I could call her if it turns into the OK Corral.  As I run down the street screaming, that is.

A car pulls up. A mild-mannered, bookish-looking man steps out. The Bat Whisperer?  An exterminator?  The Constable coming to haul me away in handcuffs for violating the noise ordinance?

No. It's Bo.

And he indeed has a gun.