"Head...Shoulders...Knees and...SOCKS!"

Halloween 1997: I was rushing home from work so that I could make a phone call before sundown.  Unfortunately, due to a combination of typical Friday night traffic, and people hurrying to get home to take their kids out trick or treating, I got stuck in traffic and arrived home too late to make my call.

When I arrived at my apartment door, I was excited to hear my cat meowing through the door.  She had a benign tumor removed from her throat earlier in the week, and was slowly regaining her voice back.  So this noise was a good thing.  I entered the apartment, flipped on the hall light, and immediately turned left into the kitchen to feed her.  She remained in the hall meowing.  I stuck my head out of the kitchen door and something flies straight towards my head.  I jumped back.  After catching my breath, and with the cat still meowing, I slowly stuck my head out of the doorway and saw a small bat frantically flying around the hallway. 

There is a bat.  In my apartment.  On Halloween.

Needless to say, I freaked out.

I grab the cat, throw her into the kitchen, close the kitchen door, and run out of the apartment.  I had visions of coming back upstairs and seeing her laying on the floor with a vampire standing over her lifeless body, blood dripping from his fangs.  I ran down to the Managers Office, and told them what happened.  They didn't believe me. "Ha Ha Socks - good one - bat in your apartment - on Halloween!"  They told me to call Animal Control.  I told them to get it the hell out of my apartment.  They call the building's maitenance guy, who was at another site.  I told them I didn't really care that they were going home for the day, I wasn't leaving until that thing was gone.

Finally the building guy shows up, and he said "Oh yeah, this happened once before.  I'll be there soon."  They had been doing work on the outside of our building, screens had been removed, and they asked if I opened the windows and let it in.  Yeah, because I am one of those sensible people that live on the 8th floor and would leave their cat home all day with open unscreened windows.  Ummm...No. 

I bravely head back upstairs, but am afraid to go into the apartment.  I open the door, and see through the shadows that the bat has now taken residence on my window blinds.  As I'm standing there, trying to figure out what to do next, one of my neighbors walks by.  I holler for help.  Neighbor man is one of many military types in my building (being as how the building was just two exits away from the Pentagon), this particular neighbor was a member of the Old Guard.  They are the guys that guard the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery.   Not wimpy men.  I tell him the problem, and he laughs.  Yeah right Socks.  A bat, in your apartment, on Halloween.  HaHa. 

He comes in and sees it "Holy Shit!  You weren't kidding!"  "WHY WOULD I LIE ABOUT THIS!!!!"  Then he walks over, opens the window, grabs the bat barehanded, throws it out the window, and closes the window.  JUST LIKE THAT!  I thank him, give him some candy, and off he goes.  Of course, the building guy comes in right then, sees no bat, but the Old Guard neighbor man yells down the hall "IT REALLY WAS THERE!"  Popular theory is that it flew in through the AC vents.

Fast forward a few years later, a friend was in town visiting her cousin.  They stayed up late drinking wine, and talking with her roommates.  One of the roommates tells this crazy story of her friend who came home one Halloween to find a bat in her apartment.  After telling it, my friend says "Oh my god!  My friend Socks went through the exact same thing!"  Turns out, I was friends with both of them from two different worlds. 

Happy Halloween everybody!