Flashback Friday: Going Batty

Hey there, blog peeps!

So, Flashback Friday this week is inspired from the post I did yesterday about the creative and thoughtful cards my cool classroom of kids provided. Ok, they aren't "my" classroom of kids since I'm neither their teacher nor their parent, but since I'm their class project I figure they get to be my kids.

Right? Right.

Anyway, the Thanksgiving card Jonathan put inside the big pink cards he and Ben made had me staring, reading, blinking and laughing.myself.into.hysterics.

That card looks innocent enough, right? Cute house, probably filled with people ready to celebrate Thanksgiving together... nothing funny there. But then we look a little closer...

I realized it wasn't just any old house; it was the house his mom and I lived in with two other friends when we were in college together. That photo of a girl locked in her bedroom on the main floor? He's designated her as Sara (me). And those things up there in the attic? He's labeled those as BATS.

If I ever doubted that child was listening at any given time, I've laid those doubts aside... because he not only listens... he knows every freaking detail.

I've mentioned this in a post before, but the last few years of college I lived with three (sometimes four) other girls in what we termed "The Big House." It didn't resemble a prison or have any sort of law enforcement implications... we were just phenomenally uncreative and called it The Big House because, quite frankly, it was a really big house.

And it was a fun house... except for one little detail: it had bats.

I don't do bats.

And I was in good company, because my roommate Amy didn't deal well with bats either. My bedroom was on the main floor of the house because I was already having trouble with stairs and was sometimes walking with a cane, and my three friends (Wente, Susie and Amy) each had a bedroom upstairs. Amy also had her own phone line because, as you can imagine, there was a lot of demand for phone time in a house of girls.

(Amy, Susie, Wente & Me celebrating Wente's engagement in 2006... Wente doesn't normally wear a crown for everyday occasions.)

That arrangement proved useful anytime those little rodents with wings would make an appearance, because as someone would yell, "Bat!" I would flee to my room, shut the door and stuff a towel under the crack, and Amy would do the same in her room. She'd call me on the phone and we'd give each other play-by-plays while Susie and Wente (and whoever else they could persuade into helping them) chased the bat through the house, swearing at the two of us for being both useless and chicken.

Quite frankly, I was totally ok with that.

Especially as I sit here with the knowledge that I made it through years of living in that house and never once so much as saw a bat. That, in and of itself, takes skill. Of course, there were some pretty hilarious moments because of it, too. Like when I was trying to make my way upstairs one night (which was no small task) and I had gotten about 3/4 of the way up when Wente yelled, "Bat!" and I tried to flee down the steps. No one could even chase after the thing because they were on the ground laughing at the sound of me and my cane trying to make it down the stairs while spouting a couple of profanities.

*step*thump*step*thump*step*thump*

Apparently the distinct sounds of stairs, me and a cane are enough to put my friends into hysterics. I'm pretty sure whatever I was screaming in the moment didn't help matters, either.

The worst bat story, in my humble opinion, had to do with my friend Amy. What you need to know about this girl is that she is a sweetheart. She is so kind and caring and you wouldn't think she'd ever hurt a fly. But what most people don't know about her is that she LIES LIKE A DOG.

That's right. She'll randomly tell you a flat-out, not a shred of truth in it, bold-face lie just to see if she can get you to fall for it. And she's really, really good at it. And I'm really, really gullible.

So when I came home from work one night and she told me there had been a bat in the house earlier that no one caught and they didn't know where it was, I totally believed her. And I walked around the house for the next two days with one eye constantly peeled for the black little devil that might swoop at my head...

Until we were all in the kitchen one morning at breakfast and I asked if there were any more sightings of the bat. Amy casually looked up from her cereal, shrugged her shoulders and said, "Oh, there never was a bat. I was just kidding. Did I forget to tell you that?"

And they thought they had heard profanity that night I step-thumped my way down the stairs...

Ahh, memories. I'm so glad Jonboy drew me that photo and reminded me of those good old times, because it brought to my attention the fact that I never did pay Amy back for all of her antics back then.

Hey, Amy... keep your eyes open, girl... you never know what I may have up my sleeves...

:)