After months of recovery, I feel it is finally time to share the legend of Gustavo with the world, or at least the parts of the world that have access to the internet and nothing better to read on a Wednesday night. Read on if you dare.
Our story begins in a small community tucked away in the mountains of western North Carolina. None of the key players in this story actually know the name of this town and believe me, that will come back to bite us (and potentially suck our blood) later.
I'll admit it...I hate the mountains. It's February and the trees are bare. The winding roads and chilly air combined with no internet connection are making me want to vomit. I was lured up here with promises of luxury chocolate factories and the duties of a lifelong friendship (turns out I would GLADLY do anything for Alexandra, even brave the mountains).
Our group includes about a dozen twenty somethings, but only two real adults. After hours of pizza, brownies, gossip and games we each claimed a bed and passed out. Some upstairs in rooms, some on couches and no one on the floor for the first time since elementary school when our moms made sure everyone had a suitable mattress separating them from the hardwood floors.
After a few hours of sleep and what I can only assume were dreams of the Spanish Inquisition based on the book I was reading at the time, I am awakened by a friend tapping me on the head with increasing urgency, whisper-shouting "RACHEL".
It took me a minute to adjust to the darkness and realize I was no longer on the Iberian Peninsula during the 15th century. My friend is still whisper-shouting that there is something in the room with us, she can hear it scratching and running around on the coffee table. I assume it's a mouse and trapped on said coffee table, not able to get to us because everyone knows mice are incapable of jumping (it was like 3:00 AM, not my best thinking).
Apparently this little critter has been scurrying around for awhile, enjoying our snacks, peeking into the gifts, smelling our belongings, judging our split ends. I hear the scratching too and I start to picture the little mouse paws, rifling through my book and taking selfies on my phone that's charging in the corner. Speaking of my phone, I need the flashlight but in order to get my phone, I would have to set foot on the floor that had previously been traversed by a rodent and that ain't happening.
So I wake up another friend and tell her to give me her phone, no longer whisper-shouting because what's the point, we're all about to be murdered by a mouse on a mission. Once we have the phone flashlight on, I point it over to the coffee table but find nothing out of the ordinary other than the fact that we left some brownies uneaten...that is definitely out of character. I swivel the phone, shining the light around the room and looking for the mousetrocity. The scratching continues, it sounds like something trying to claw its way out. I resign to death.
Then, somehow, compelled by a level of understanding I wasn't fully cognizant of at the time, I shift the light upwards, to the ceiling. We finally see it. On the wall. Clinging to the hinge of the French doors that open to the unfathomable mountainside.
A bat.
We of course ran into the nearest room and locked the door behind us. Still we couldn't be sure of our safety because those bats are very dexterous and you never know. Can't be too safe when rabies takes wing.
Once I was no longer in immediate danger, I decided the issue could wait till morning. So I took the pillow and blanket I so savvily grabbed in the previous panic and plopped down on the floor. Everyone else in the room was discussing what to do about the situation and noted that there was actually bat feces littering the floor. And I'm up!
Asking ourselves "what would our parents do?" we use what little cell reception we can scrape up to call animal control. Animal control needed an address. Guess who had no idea what the address was? That's right! This was shaping up to be quite the weekend.
Animal control basically left us there to die since our only stab at an address was "Ummm...we're in the mountains?" so we all went upstairs. At this point, we just gave up. We let the bat, who I aptly named Gustavo, have the entire ground floor, giving up some 1300 square feet. We would have all made terrible Revolutionary War generals. Had I been in charge of the troops, you would be reading this post...well in English but in weird English and it would be your favourite blog to read at tea time.
In the morning, when we were all operating marginally better, Lupay took one for the team. While the actual adults opened the window, Lupay swiftly scooped Gustavo into a towel...and threw the whole thing out the window so he could be free to chill with vampires and follow Rasputin around and whatever else it is bats do.
Gustavo, if you're reading this...how did you learn to read?
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