Quick, Robin! It's the Batphone!

I shall now speak of bats—the furry, mammal, flying, blind kind—and of phones—the landline kind. They don’t have anything to do with each other but both are happening at this exact moment and thus they are lumped together. I shall the two stories simultaneously. I think it will be easy to tell who has bragging rights—MJagger and her rabid bats or me and my lack of phone service. Other blog-worthy entries about work, beetles, Brett Favre, closeted work episodes , dropped batons in the Olympics & smelly yeasty dog will have to wait.

First, the phone. (I get to go first because it’s my blog. Artwork by Nataliedee.com. You should check out her artwork. Cracks. Me. Up.)

I get home and the wife is lamenting over the landline phone bill. It shows a charge for a three-way call, on a day neither of us was home, to a number we did not recognize. Um, we don’t even know how to make a three way call. Heck, we didn’t even know we could make such a call. So, I get on the phone—oh joy of joys—and find myself on hold trying to get ahold of the phone company, the ultimate professionals of putting you on hold til you give in and hang up. Surprisingly, it only took me 20 minutes to get a human on the line and the hold music was from the 1980’s, so that was good and as it was only 20 minutes, it wasn’t as bad as last time, when I gave up after 45 minutes. I explain to the guy that there is this charge and that we didn’t make the call, blah blah blah. He acknowledges he “sees” the charge and adds, “I’m going to have to look into this further; may I put you on hold?” I want to kill myself when he says this but I agree……

Click. Silence. Shit.

Now, to MJagger, who at the very moment is sitting at the emergency room with her entire family waiting to get rabies shots.

Yes, you read that right—rabies shots.

This is where the bats come in. Literally. It appears MJagger has a bat problem and a bad one at that (I’m not sure there is such a thing as a good bat problem but this is a really, really bad problem). Seems she’s seen a bat or two in the house over the past several months but nothing bad enough to even mention it to me--trust me, if the bats were a problem, I would have known. Her story from the past 24 hours is very traumatic and involves bats swooping down at various family members, bats in the night, bats chasing children….and…..a probable bat bite to Mini-MJagger. On the face.

EEEE-YEOW!

ON.

THE.

FACE.

(I wonder if this makes my sister have flashbacks of bats in her hair at girl scout camp???) If it’s any consultation, the child has no recollection of being attacked by a bat but so much has been going on and so many scary stories have been developing, anything is possible.

Back to the phone, or lack of it. I’m holding the phone, wondering about the silence, thinking, “sure sounds like he hung up on me.” I hold the handset to my ear for 20 more minutes, listening to what sounds like a dead line. One is never sure about hanging up because if I’m just on hold and hang up, I’ve just “given up my place” in the phone waiting line list. I decide piss on this, hang up and go to re-dial. Thing is, there is no dial tone.

NO. DIAL. TONE!

I go get a different landline handset. Nothing. I go use the phone on the wall. Nothing. The wife gets her cell phone and calls our land line. Nothing. I go get my cell phone—you know, the one I hate from the provider I hate. I use the cell phone—the one that will be sucking up my costly anytime minutes—and call the phone company back. When that stupid automated voice asks me what the problem is, I scream “I HATE BT &T!” Incredibly, the voice says, “It sounds like you said your service is disconnected. Is that right?”

This stops me from screaming. Gives me pause.

Back to the bat attack. MJagger calls on my cell phone. Her description of her night from bat hell is enough to make anyone’s toes curl. I cannot do her justice in this blog; it is a story that needs to be verbally conveyed by the survivors. (By the way, did you know bats are on the protected list and so you just can’t shoot them or bash them with a bat? What is wrong with this world? Don’t give me crap about bats eating mosquitoes—if a bat is in the house, it’s fair game to whomp with a tennis racket. And, I am a tree hugging, bleeding liberal vegetarian and if I say you should whomp on bats, you should.) The bats—yes, more than one--managed to terrorize Mini-MJagger to the point her little voice squeaked out, “Mama, my knees are shaking and I’m not even making them do that.” As there is a small mark on Mini-MJagger’s face, right by the eye, and as it looks like a bite mark and as it is swollen and as there are no known reasons for said mark/bite, MJagger calls the doctor, who calls the health department, who calls MJagger, who gets the shit scared out of her.

Word of advice: do NOT go to the Internet for information on bat bites, as it will scare you half to death…which, of course, is what the Internet predicts for MJagger’s young bat-bitten daughter. Literally. Get rabies shots or die.

MJagger is told by various medical professionals as well as the Internet that not only will her daughter need the rabies shots series, the ENTIRE FAMILY will need the shots. NOW. (I told you MJagger’s story would put my phone woes to shame. But, you are my cheap therapy, so indulge me, will ya?)

Back at the ranch, I’m staring at my cell phone minutes rolling by, taking BT&T’s name in vain. I finally get to a human and she is brilliantly able to verify that I do not have phone service. DUH!

Thankfully, this human is able to take care of the three way calling bill. She also offers me all sorts of fabulous phone, internet and satellite services, of which I politely decline. When she says she is going to transfer me to the “Repair Department,” I balk loudly. I am NOT going to be cut off again. She agrees and takes my cell phone number. Good luck with that. Before she transfers me, I then tell her the original reason I had called a few weeks ago (the 45 minute on hold call) was to cancel my Linebacker coverage. As my phone no longer works and it could conceivably be a problem with my internal phone lines, I decide keeping this service is probably a good idea.

She laughs and indicates that it must be a sign that I most certainly should.

MJagger calls me on my cell phone—because she obviously STILL cannot call me on the landline—from the hospital. The family of four is waiting for their rabies shots to arrive from the Health Department. One would think that an ER would have rabies shots but they do not. I guess the emergency of the emergency does not warrant immediate access to the shots as long as someone can get them to the ER within some framework of time. As I have been on the Internet, I assure MJagger that the rabies shots are no longer given in the stomach and that it is nothing like “in the olden days” where the cure was probably just as bad as the bite.

This is not much consolation to someone waiting for rabies shots, in the stomach or not.

How do these stories end? The wife and I remain without phone service, but who cares? MJagger has just texted “grlz got 3 shots we r next it is in the butt.” She adds that she will get four shots and her hubby will get six. Thus, her story has not ended yet. Her night has not ended. Her bat issues have not ended. Hell, even her shots have not ended--they will be having a series of shots over the next 30 days.

That SO puts my phone problem into perspective. It puts just about everything into perspective, don't you think?

I'll let you know what happens. Just don't expect me to call.