Can't Sleep, Bat Will Eat Me

I've never been more freaked out in my entire life than on Saturday night. I walked out of my apartment to get some milk, and pushed the button for the elevator. The elevator came.

Ding!

The door to the elevator opened, and a bat came flying out, screeching and heading directly for my face. Now, I've seen bats in person before, but only ones that are just hanging there, doing nothing. I've never run away from them or thought of them as scary before, but believe me, when you see one flying directly at your face, you move your ass.

The furry little head, the creepy little teeth, the small handgun it was carrying; I had good reason to be frightened of this bat. The damn thing was trying to eat me. I saw its mouth moving as it was flying at me. It was getting ready to chew on me.

I was able to dodge the bat, and my first natural reaction was to run down the hallway, screaming like a woman. The bat followed me down the hall, flapping its wings and bumping into the walls all along the way. This wasn't a good sign. Obviously, the bat was inebriated. It was now definite: the bat was trying to eat me.

So I ran back, ducked the bat again (still screaming like a child in a supermarket) and ran back into the open elevator. I pressed the button for the first floor, and the elevator door didn't close.

My building is very old, so the elevator is really slow. Therefore, it takes a while for the door to close. So there I sat, pounding frantically on the "close door" button as the bat flew back and forth outside the elevator. The bat even flew in the elevator again a few times before the door finally closed. With how slow the elevator is, I can't even imagine what terrors I would have gone through if the bat were stuck in there with me. I saw its teeth. It probably would have chewed on my face like taffy.

Keep in mind that this whole ordeal involved three full minutes of me screaming in the hallway. It says a lot about La Crosse when no one will help a man when a bat's trying to eat him. The residents probably thought I was just some lousy drunken college kid. Next time I open the elevator and a bat attacks me, I'm going to catch it in a pillowcase, knock on their doors and throw the damn thing in their apartments.

So I decided to go to the bar and wait things out. I wasn't planning on going out that night, but it was a good excuse.

"Can't go home, bat will eat me."

So I ordered a beer, thought about it for a while, and decided not to go back until the sun was up. Bats sleep when it's sunny. They melt when sunlight hits them. Saw it in a Bugs Bunny cartoon once, where Bugs was trying to escape a vampire.

I decided that the story might be a good pickup line for any loose women meandering about, but it didn't quite work out the way I planned it. Mainly, I found that most women don't want to hang out with a guy when a bat outside his apartment is trying to eat him.

So, bat or no bat, I decided to head home. I tried to smuggle my empty bottle out of the bar, thinking I could smash it on the sidewalk and stab the bat with it, but they caught me at the door.

The bat was nowhere to be found when I returned. It must have seen one of the old ladies on my floor and eaten them instead. Serves 'em right. Those old biddies just left me to die in the hallway when the bat was trying to eat me. Lousy bastard neighbors.