The Heart-Stopping Tale of the Terrifying Attack Bird that Flew into My House

It was an ordinary Saturday night. The kids were playing, if whacking each other with a stick counts, the husband was working on an endless work thing, and I was hanging out in my natural habitat, the kitchen. I had just settled in for a mind-numbing session of looking at the same 5 sites over and over again when the dog did that thing she does to let us know she wants to go outside (standing nearish the kitchen door while trying to make eye contact with someone). I sighed heavily to let her know how much of an inconvenience this was for me and flung open the back door.

What happened next took place in the space of 2 or 3 seconds, but it felt like slow-motion. My brain couldn't keep up with the chaos, but it basically went down like this:

I opened the door and was immediately hit in the face by something, but I didn't know what that something was. My mind went to "BAT!"

Obviously, I started screaming a terrifying scream straight out of Psycho, bringing forth all matter of child and beast, but no husband. Cats were tearing through the house, the dog raced back inside to try her best to trip me as I ran around in circles in the kitchen screaming at the short people to retrieve their father, my voice raising an octave with every panicked sentence:  

"Go get Daddy!! Get Daddy now!! There is a bat!! A BAT! ANDERSON THERE IS A BAT!!!"

I may or may not have peed a little.

Finally, I managed to take in a little oxygen and determine that I needed to locate the bat. My eyes scanned the room counterclockwise. Cabinets. Stove. Sink. Fridge. A bird on the corner cabinet. Microwave. What. It took way too long for my brain to register that the bat was a bird, and I stupidly breathed a sigh of relief before I realized a bird was in the house. 

"BIRD!!" I screamed uselessly. 

"There is a bird??" David exclaimed. "I love birds!! Anderson, there is a bird! Oh, yay, Mommy!" 

By now Kurt had finally emerged from the basement, looking glazed and overworked.

"It's not a spider," I reassured him.

"What is it?"

I pointed toward the corner.

"I'm not coming in until you tell me what it is!"

"Just look!"

"I don't want whatever it is to attack me."

"Don't you want to save me??"

"Well..."

"Oh my god. It is a bird! An attack bird! Get it!"

"Seriously?"

He finally came in the room and we all looked at one another. 

The bird and Kurt exchanged a look. The bird and I exchanged a wary look. 

Kurt and I exchanged a half-bemused/half-panicked look that conveyed a singular thought: Oh, geez. We're the parents in this scenario. It's all on us to remove this winged hell-beast from our home before it destroys every one of us and takes the dog to its lair just for spite. 

We spent the next 10 minutes chasing the bird from room to room.

No, bird. This is a picture of a tree. It's embarrassing to admit how easily you outwitted us. Repeatedly.

The bird is nearish this area. Kurt was really thankful for my my helpful bad-picture taking while he alone worked to coax the bird from its various perches.

The chaos continues. I think I was yelling useful information about exactly where the bird was at that second. "It is on the Christmas tree! It is on that picture frame! The bird just flew that way!" I'm pretty concerned about my ability to cope with an emergency at this point.

The bird wanted to help put up the Christmas decorations, maybe. He scrambled around in boxes while Kurt looked on wearing his protective work gloves.

Kurt attempts to coax the bird down as if he has suddenly become the Falconer.

The bird was very, very confused and could not comprehend the need to exit through one of the wide open doors or windows. Our collective 11 years of higher education did not help in this terrifying scenario. We contemplated going next door to borrow a beekeeper's suit from the neighbor because above all else, allowing the bird to touch one of us was out of the question, despite the fact that he'd already smacked me full in the face. We thought about things we'd seen on TV. "Well, they are always shooing them out with a broom, right? We could just hit at it with a broom."

Around this time, the terrifying bat/bird/dragon began walking around on the floor like he had decided to become a person since going outside ever again was obviously out of the question. 

He asked for a dry martini and made a passive-aggressive comment about the state of our living room, something about how it must be nice to feel so unencumbered by social graces like "cleaning," and that's when I'd finally had enough. 

I gave him the side-eye and cleared my throat pointedly. 

And then, he rolled his eyes and walked out the front door without so much as a "how do you do."

Fin.