My Bat

At the beginning of Fall semester a couple of years ago, I got a bat for my office. He slept in my window during the day, between the screen and the glass (there was a big gap outside). That's him (or her; I have no skill at sexing bats) at right.

He was cute furry little thing, small enough to have fit in the palm of my hand. For the first week or so he was there I thought he was a leaf.

I thought this was very cool. It was the first semester I was teaching large sections, and I took it as a good omen. I watched him get ready to go out one night, after I turned out my light. Did you know bats groom? He would hang from his toes and stretch and lick himself, finally using his little front paws (wings) to clean his tiny little ears and head. Then he finally clambered out and flew off.

Personally, I would have liked to have trained him to hang from my jacket pocket during the day. Then I could wear him to class and freak out my students. And if one of them gave an answer I didn't like, I could say, "Fly! Fly my pretty! Get them!"

But he left to find another perch at some point after the first week or two of the semester, and he hasn't been back since. I miss him. I was just thinking about him and thought I'd share. It's one of the coolest things that happened at my office, Ooga Booga notwithstanding.