I fought the bat ... and I won

OK. The title to this blog is just a little misleading.

But I thought it was funny.

It was Monday evening. Approximately 11 p.m.

One of the dogs was barking relentlessly.

I had been asleep for a little more than one hour when Merry woke me up to find out what Andromeda was barking about.

Dogs have different pitches in their barks. This bark was an alert.

Something was in the house and she didn't like it.

Needless to say, at the time, I was unaware of the bark and pitch. After all, I had been sleeping peacefully.

I walked into the family room and told Andi to be quiet.

Then, I went back to bed.

No more barking. Peace and quiet. A nice evening.

I woke up a little before 6 a.m. to feed the dogs. The normal routine.

I walked into the family room and took Andi outside, again, the normal routine.

We then went back into the house for feeding time.

But Andi, who normally sprints to the food bowls to eat, practically eked over to the area in the kitchen.

When I walked into the kitchen, I saw Andi smelling at something behind the food bowls.

"What in the world is that," I thought as I crept closer.

From there, I grabbed the broom and poked this strange blob of black.

It, in turn, spread its wings and shrieked.

Wow. A bat. Curled up on the floor by the dog's food bowls.

How in the world did a bat get in the house.

The night before, I had covered the Staunton Town Council meeting before going back to the office to finish up the evening.

While at the office, I saw a comment posted on a blog I had written Monday.

The comment discussed my love for the movie "Tombstone."

It stated how two of the movie characters -- Curly Bill Brocius (portrayed by Powers Booth) and Johnny Ringo (portrayed by Michael Biehn) were originally from Indiana.

While at work, I looked up this information. Sure enough, Brocius was born in Crawfordsville and Ringo was born in Greens Fork, Ind., in Wayne County).

I thought that was really neat.

But back to the bat.

Our wayward traveler must have flown into the house last night when I came home from work. But I don't remember turning on the "vacancy" light when I came home.

But I don't recall any zipping action. In fact, after I got home, I took the dogs out and sat in the family room to read for a bit before going to bed.

But Andi's incessant barking now makes sense. There was something in the house and she didn't approve.

The beagle? Not a peep.

Anyway, I honestly had no idea how to get the creature out of our home.

At first, I grabbed the broom and dust pan thinking I could sweep it into the pan and carry it outside. This did not work.

I went into the bedroom to inform Merry of the situation as it was getting close to time for her to get ready for work. She reminded me of the net we have outside for the inflatable pool we have. It is used to remove debris from the pool.

Sure, this could work.

I went outside, grabbed the net and headed back to the kitchen for full-on battle. But the bat had other ideas.

It wasn't prepped for battle. In fact, when I approached, it practically threw up the white flag of surrender, grabbed ahold of the net and let me take it outside.

Who knows what became of our unwanted Monday evening friend.

But thanks to Andi, we were alerted that something wasn't right.

So I guess, Andi fought the bat ... and she won.