Bats

There are bats in my parking garage. I saw one last Friday hanging from the metal grid that encloses the staircase. Initially, I was thrilled. I'm always excited to see urban wildlife (that is wildlife that is not rats) and the parking garage is new, so I was enthused that they were already warming up to it. And bats are especially great with their appetites for bugs and mosquitoes. But Monday morning as I walked down, I saw that the bat had died. It had fallen to the ground right below where it had been hanging. When I got into the office a co-worker suggested that I call the health department, so I did call the Animal Control division and they assured me that they would come out and check it out for rabies or west nile. Now I'm sort of freaked out. I had resisted moving to the parking garage since I hate them anyway, and I already was taking the stairs since I'm not so thrilled with the claustrophobic elevators. Now I've somewhat convinced myself that there is a coven of rabid bats haunting the garage waiting for me in the stairwell. This has seriously upset the only exercise I really was doing (walking down from the 9th or 10th floor and walking up a couple of floors before catching the elevator). Then again, maybe they aren't in the stairwell, but amassed in the elevator, waiting for me to close the doors before they swoop down. Probably it hasn't helped that I'm watching Trueblood, with it's creepy bat montage in the open sequence. So help me get over my irrational bat fear, folks so I can get back to the stairs.