Bats

This week I was at the devotional in the Marriott Center, and there were two bats flying around the entire auditorium. They would fly near the rafters, fly above various levels of the audience, and sometimes even fly near the stand where the speakers and all the officials sit. I was surprised that no one speaking said anything about them, because we could all see them. People were pointing at them; even someone sitting on the stand pointed at them. I found it hilarious.

It got me thinking about the other times in my life when I have seen bats in the wild (by "in the wild," I mean "not at a zoo.")

The earliest I can remember is at "The Pond," where my great-grandma used to live in upstate New York, in 2001. It was evening, and there were some bats flying in the sky.

The next time was in November 2002 in Taiwan. I think it was our last night there. We were in a park and there were bats flying above us during the evening. On that same trip my dad bought a bat figurine, since bats are considered good luck. I thought it was fitting, therefore, to see bats on that trip.

The next time I can remember didn't happen clear until September 2006. I was standing near the back door of Woods Cross High School, waiting for my carpool buddy, David Christensen. I was standing there when I saw something flying down the hall. You don't usually see flying things in buildings, so I thought it was funny. I thought it was a bird, but as it got close I realized it was a bat. It was so surprising that many of us were laughing. One girl pulled out her phone to snap pictures. Someone tried to swat it. The bat seemed kind of confused. When David came, I told him about it (I can't remember if he had seen it) and I was laughing. As we walked out to my car, I kept laughing. David told me he worried I wouldn't be able to drive because I was laughing so much. I even wrote about it on my family's blog.

The next bat incident I remember was June 26, 2009 (my journal helps me remember that). My companion and I went to visit a family, the Denisons, in Lapwai, ID, every week. They were quite poor (as was everyone in Lapwai) and lived in a single-wide trailer with lots of cats. We would visit them in their bedroom. On that day, James was wearing a glove with a bat on it. It had flown into a window at his work and knocked itself out, so he picked it up and took it home. It was just sitting on his hand, barely living. Bloody things were coming out of it. He said we could touch it, so I did (it was soft), but Elder Warren didn't. Soon, however, the bat began reviving. Then it began flying around the room. It brushed against Elder Warren as it flew. Then it would occasionally stop and hang on the wall. All the cats in the house were very attentive and interested in it. Since it was flying again, James caught it and took it outside. He told us that it flew off.

Then during the summer of 2010, I had come home from running when I noticed a bat hanging above the door of another apartment in my complex. I was so surprised that I ran up to my apartment, threw open the door, grabbed my camera, and told my roommate Alex about the bat. He and the girl he was with came down with me to look. I took pictures, but apparently they're on my home computer. Alex had some popcorn in his hand, so he put it on the door ledge near the bat, as a food offering.  The next afternoon it was still there; it may have been there for two or three days.

One night in the summer of 2011, I went running. I saw something flying above me, but it seemed to be flying a little erratically, and it suddenly changed direction. Although I wasn't sure, I assumed it was a bat, since it was late in the evening and birds don't usually fly like that.

Then last summer, I had opened the door of my apartment to go do some knee exercises on the stairs. It was probably 10 or 11 at night. I was so surprised to see a bat flying toward me (in the little hallway connecting apartments) that I jumped back into the apartment, slamming the door against the wall. The bat went on its way, but I was glad to have seen it, even if it had freaked me out.

And that brings me up to the present!