There’s good news. And there’s bad news.
This week, the good news was that the furry little bat—with its pointy ears; fluttering hand-wings; perky nose; and shiny pointed teeth—was healthy. The bad news was that the old bat had bitten my mother-in-law on the neck. Sounds like a bad scene from a vampire movie, doesn’t it?
Now I want to begin by saying that I like my mother-in-law. On the day mothers-in-law were handed out, my sisters-in-law and I ran over to the line where they gave out the good ones. But being a mother-in-law myself, I get a little nervous when the words “mother-in-law” and “old bat” are used in the same sentence.
In fact, on the day I was to become a mother-in-law for the first time, a member of the wedding party—I won’t name him except to say he was about to become a father-in-law for the first time himself that day—asked me a question. It happened to be about mothers-in-law.
“What’s the difference,” he said, “between a mother-in-law and a pit bull?”
He answered quickly. Like he knew something I didn’t. “There’s lipstick,” he said, “on the mother-in-law.”
That’s the bad news. The good news? At least he hadn’t compared me to an old bat.
There are a few people who actually love the order of chiroptera. These bat biologists, these bat boosters, admire what most us of refer to as scary, ugly, flying beasts, myself included. Germans call these bats die fledermaus, or flying mouse. I don’t care for that image much either.
But look at it from this angle: bat dung has been mined in bat caves and used as fertilizer. Plus, bats consume insects—stinkbugs, leafhoppers, June bugs, and cucumber beetles, the proud parents of corn rootworm. So that tells me bats are appealing to corn growers.
In some locations, bats serve as a tourist attraction. That’s more than we can say for most humans.
It’s all a matter of perspective. That is to say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Bats keep multiplying each year, so an old bat looking for love must appear pretty gosh darn fetching to another old bat on the prowl. Either that, or they just happen to bump into one another in the dark. And speaking of that, I’m told that bats can navigate in total darkness. That means when you’re lying in bed at night you’ll never really know when a renegade bat plans to sneak up on you. That might be the good thing.
Or the bad thing.
There’s probably a good thing in the midst of all bad things. So, your boss is as snarly as an old pit bull? At least you don’t have to go home with him. You’re living with an old bat? At least you haven’t been bitten on the neck.
Yet.
Maybe you’ll want to start sleeping with the light on.
LaRayne Topp
This week, the good news was that the furry little bat—with its pointy ears; fluttering hand-wings; perky nose; and shiny pointed teeth—was healthy. The bad news was that the old bat had bitten my mother-in-law on the neck. Sounds like a bad scene from a vampire movie, doesn’t it?
Now I want to begin by saying that I like my mother-in-law. On the day mothers-in-law were handed out, my sisters-in-law and I ran over to the line where they gave out the good ones. But being a mother-in-law myself, I get a little nervous when the words “mother-in-law” and “old bat” are used in the same sentence.
In fact, on the day I was to become a mother-in-law for the first time, a member of the wedding party—I won’t name him except to say he was about to become a father-in-law for the first time himself that day—asked me a question. It happened to be about mothers-in-law.
“What’s the difference,” he said, “between a mother-in-law and a pit bull?”
He answered quickly. Like he knew something I didn’t. “There’s lipstick,” he said, “on the mother-in-law.”
That’s the bad news. The good news? At least he hadn’t compared me to an old bat.
There are a few people who actually love the order of chiroptera. These bat biologists, these bat boosters, admire what most us of refer to as scary, ugly, flying beasts, myself included. Germans call these bats die fledermaus, or flying mouse. I don’t care for that image much either.
But look at it from this angle: bat dung has been mined in bat caves and used as fertilizer. Plus, bats consume insects—stinkbugs, leafhoppers, June bugs, and cucumber beetles, the proud parents of corn rootworm. So that tells me bats are appealing to corn growers.
In some locations, bats serve as a tourist attraction. That’s more than we can say for most humans.
It’s all a matter of perspective. That is to say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Bats keep multiplying each year, so an old bat looking for love must appear pretty gosh darn fetching to another old bat on the prowl. Either that, or they just happen to bump into one another in the dark. And speaking of that, I’m told that bats can navigate in total darkness. That means when you’re lying in bed at night you’ll never really know when a renegade bat plans to sneak up on you. That might be the good thing.
Or the bad thing.
There’s probably a good thing in the midst of all bad things. So, your boss is as snarly as an old pit bull? At least you don’t have to go home with him. You’re living with an old bat? At least you haven’t been bitten on the neck.
Yet.
Maybe you’ll want to start sleeping with the light on.
LaRayne Topp
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