I’m not exactly sure when I chose to believe the myth that bats get stuck in people’s hair, but once I caught wind of that idea, I was convinced it was absolutely and completely true. And, as a woman with thick curly hair, I was convinced that any foray I made outside after dark in any place considered even remotely as wild as my hair would have me tangled up with a bat in no time. As embarrassing as it may be, I believed this old wives’ tale well into my old-enough-to-know-better years. Still, I have also always found bats to be adorable little flying mammals, and, more recently, I have begun believing they truly do not get stuck in people’s hair as much as I was once led to believe when I was a true city girl.
When I was living in Connecticut in my early 20s, I remember hanging out with a friend of mine when we realized a bat had somehow managed to get inside her house in the middle of the day. I’m fairly certain he was probably about as freaked out as we were, but that didn’t really matter much in the moment. I was convinced he would end up tangled up in my curls and she was intent on keeping him from making his way upstairs to the bedrooms and hiding away until bedtime. With that in mind, she grabbed a laundry basket and tossed it in the direction of the flitting and diving bat—and she managed to land it just right so that the basket captured him without hurting him and her husband was able to release him outside when he got home. Even so, when I recall being in that small space with that bat, I can still feel my fast-beating heart in my chest and still see how much bigger he appeared in my mind!
In many ways, I owe some of my changing attitudes toward some of God’s lesser lovable creatures to my teenage girls. My 17 year old mirrors me in her anxiety around spiders and outside bugs who find their way inside. But, unlike me, she finds many reptiles, including and especially snakes, quite fascinating and will ask if she can have one as a pet. Just yesterday, she asked again after a visit to the reptile house at our local Nature Center and received verbatim from my husband my rote answer: not white you are still living in our house. However, her love of bats has definitely rubbed off on me at least a little bit. And as we left the Nature Center yesterday, I was happy to oblige that love in the purchase of a small stuffed bat she could attach to her water bottle; a bat she happily named Mr. Crowley in honor of Ozzy Osbourne.
Then there’s my 15 year old who will go out of her way to save just about any bug, scooping them up and releasing them outside. There are times when she is a substitute dragon slayer when her dad isn’t home, tracking and catching skinks to get them out of my living room and wielding a shoe to take out a rogue anxiety-inducing insect when necessary. However, this girl has rarely met a creature she doesn’t want to take home or that doesn’t make her voice go up an octave or two when she speaks to it or talks about it. Such was the pattern of conversation yesterday as we made our way through the local Nature Center, requesting to take home otters, black bears, mountain lions, and bobcats among a few other adorable mammals. Unfortunately, the only things we allowed her to bring home was an adorable small stuffed Monarch caterpillar, who currently remains unnamed at the time of this posting.
As I have written in previous posts, I am more like Melman, the giraffe in the movie Madagascar, who, when tangled in jungle vines, exclaims, Ahhhhh! Nature! It’s all over me! Get it off! Honestly, this has become a long-running joke in our family ever since we discovered Madagascar and Melman. In this regard, he truly is my spirit animal. But, as I’ve said, my two teenagers have helped reshape some of my fear and uncertainty around certain critters, including bats.
Which is why when I got one of the many emails about fascinating facts in my inbox the other day, I couldn’t wait to share it with my teens. The article was about how some bats sing love songs: “In 2009, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M studied the vocalizations of Tadarida brasiliensis — the Brazilian free-tailed bat, more commonly known as the Mexican free-tailed bat — and found the tunes to be surprisingly nuanced love songs.” Of course my girls found the information fascinating and the bats adorable. Honestly, so did I. I guess the fact that they’re both a little batty has influenced my own battiness. And I have to say, I love that about them! I love the way they see the world and the creatures in it. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.