Last night, Jenn asked me if I'd stay with her, saying that she'd "rather not be alone tonight". I was more than happy to oblige, after making sure that nothing serious was wrong.

We were rudely awakened some time between 1 and 2 A.M. when Jenn's cat used Jenn's face as a springboard, leaving three nasty gash marks on her lips. As Jenn washed her face off in the bathroom, I noticed that the cat seemed to be tracking a fly with her head. Although... she was keeping track of it way more consistently than she usually could, especially considering how dark it was... and a fly would be a lot more erratic than that - whatever she's looking at seems to be flying in a pretty regular circle...

It was at this point that Jenn emerged from the bathroom, shrieked, and ran back into the bathroom.

Jenn doesn't deal well with bats. The last time she had one, she called me up to come get her and she and the cat stayed the night at my place.

So I knew right away what it was. And sure enough, there it was, circling the room about six inches above my head.

I waited for an opening, then commando-crawled to the bathroom to make sure Jenn was okay. (Fine, yes, and to get the hell away from the thing myself.)

As we listened to the ongoing battle between the cat and the bat, we weighed our options. I made a couple of sorties, towel draped over my head, to open various windows and turn on various lights. We finally decided to head back to my place, so I snuck out to find her a sweater. At that point, I didn't see the bat flying around, and the cat seemed to have calmed down. The two of us (me and the cat!) searched around for it, and finally reached the conclusion (well, I did) that it had flown out the window.

Exhausted, Jenn and I went back to bed. I grabbed a broom from the kitchen and put it by the bed.

Some time later - maybe five minutes, maybe an hour - Jenn rolled over, looked up, screamed, and pulled the covers over her head. Crap.

"Alright, you flying rodent motherfucker," I didn't say, "now you're gonna pay."

I rolled off the bed, grabbed the broom, and crouched, ready for action. The cat chased it out of the bedroom and into the foyer, and I leapt to the doorway after them.

Those of you so inclined may now imagine the picture rotating, zooming in, and getting pixelated as our battle with the bat commenced.

As the cat leapt and clawed, I swung the broom clumsily, missing the bat on each pass. Finally, I grazed it, sending it to the floor, where I whacked it with a few good overhead blows. The cat pounced, sending it flying down the stairwell. Jenn took this opportunity to dart into the bathroom, and threw me out a towel. (Who knew that her apartment was filled with so much useful weaponry?)

The cat padded down to the bottom of the steps, flushing the bat out into the waiting bristles of my broom of death. I knocked it to the ground, and she tussled with it, causing a flurry of disgusting bat-squeaks.

Jenn lured her to the top of the stairs as I tossed the towel over the dazed rodent. We pondered a couple of box-related solutions before I finally decided to suck it up and knock the sucker out the door.

We returned to bed, my triumph tinged only slightly with the knowledge that, if I weren't so squeamish, I could have taken care of it in about half the time.