{"id":34320,"date":"2025-08-26T05:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=34320"},"modified":"2025-08-25T21:54:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T01:54:05","slug":"the-chiropteriad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/26\/the-chiropteriad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chiropteriad"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

So last night around midnight I was trying to fall asleep in bed when I heard some noise coming from a window.\u00a0 In the summer this window has one of those screens with the bracing handles that snugs into the frame of the window.\u00a0 I had noticed that it wasn\u2019t completely sealed into the window frame but figured it would keep 95% of the bugs out so I didn\u2019t bother to fiddle with it.\u00a0 Anyway, it was dark so I couldn\u2019t see anything but there was a scurrying and scratching noise.\u00a0 So, I turned on the light and almost immediately a small black object fell to the floor under the window and immediately opened its wings and flitted around the room.\u00a0 It was a bat.\u00a0 I woke Camera Girl and like the good woman she is she ran screaming from the room.\u00a0 Being a man of action, I started swatting at it with a sweatshirt I had on hand.\u00a0 That proved to be less than useless.\u00a0 So, I procured a kitchen broom and ran around the room swatting at it.\u00a0 No go.\u00a0 I opened up the door to the balcony and tried to force him out that way.\u00a0 When a second bat entered the room by the door, I reconsidered this tactic and closed said door.\u00a0 Now I was ineffectually swinging a broom at two bats that were swooping around the room.<\/p>\n

Having a low tolerance for useless effort I closed the doors to our closets and bathroom and beat a hasty retreat to the hallway outside where Camera Girl confronted me on my failure as a protector of the marital bedroom.\u00a0 I declared a temporary retreat but swore a terrible oath on the River Styx that in the morning I would reconquer our sacred homeland and evict the flying vermin with all of my strength and cunning.\u00a0 So, we were marooned in one of the spare bedrooms and greatly was I wroth.\u00a0 After a surprisingly comfortable sleep I woke up raring to settle the score with these winged interlopers.\u00a0 I brought a six-foot ladder, a child\u2019s butterfly net and a stiff piece of cardboard to trap the beasts inside the net.<\/p>\n

After a somewhat thorough inspection of the ceiling, I couldn\u2019t locate my enemies.\u00a0 Then I looked behind the blinds of one of the other windows that was opened and found one of the critters wedged in the upper corner between the screen and the frame.\u00a0 I lowered the open window as far as I could while still allowing my hands to force the screen outward and then pushed.\u00a0 Now the screen was hanging below the window on the outside of the house.\u00a0 I assumed the bat would fly off in fear.\u00a0 I was mistaken.\u00a0 The stupid creature was clinging to the screen.\u00a0 I got my head and shoulders out of the window and with the leverage I now had I banged the screen against the wall and finally the bat let go and ended up on a flat roof below the window.\u00a0 Apparently stunned, he later flew off.<\/p>\n

I went back and made a closer inspection of some curtains and found the other varmint tucked between the wall and a curtain rod.\u00a0 I angled the butterfly net and the cardboard as close to the critter as possible and then scraped him off the wall with the cardboard and trapped him with the net.\u00a0 With Camera Girl nervously entering the room to open the balcony door (and quickly shutting it behind me!) I was able to shake the flying invader out of the net and whoosh; he winged into the woods.<\/p>\n

Dunwich has many hazards.\u00a0 Vampires, lycanthropes of various descriptions, ghouls and even Democrats haunt the swamps and graveyards of this cursed land.\u00a0 But I feel that my actions today deserve some very special tribute.\u00a0 Some kind of testimonial with perhaps a cash award would be reasonable, I think.\u00a0 In a more creative era, the local poet laureate would dedicate an epic poem, possibly in dactylic hexameter, to immortalize my titanic struggle to make Camera Girl safe in her own boudoir.\u00a0 Maybe I can get Grok or ChatGPT to put something together.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see.<\/p>\n

Sing Muse of that hero skilled in the netting and ejecting of chiropteran monsters in all their horror<\/p>\n

Who climbed to great heights and swung the broom to protect the goddess Camera Girl from any harm<\/p>\n

Bring him to my mind\u2019s eye and let me praise him with great praise.\u00a0 What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or something like that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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