In the afterglow of the Packer's big playoff win, I help my wife for a few minutes this afternoon in the attic, where she wants to locate and move down our collection of nice wooden blocks for our youngest girls to play with.
Anyway, we're up there moving these Rubbermaid tubs around, and as I bend down to the floor to pick up a piece of loose paper, I notice this amazingly realistic rubber bat figure lying on its back, wings spread, mouth agape, eyes wide open, etc., and I think to myself, "God, we have some stunningly good animal figures."
Until I realize this one is breathing hard.
I start to exclaim, "I think that's a ba-"
From over my shoulder, where Vonne is standing up on some tubs to access upper shelves of storage, a purple Rubbermaid tub comes flying by to land with a deadening thud on top of the prostrate bat.
I correct myself: "uh . . . a dead bat."
If I had thought about it, I would have been more spooked, but I grew up around them and we often had them in our house during summer nights. I was even bitten by one once, being forced to take the rabies series of shots. I was later bitten by an actual rabid dog, forcing a second round.
I did all that, to include being hit by a speeding car in the street in front of my house, before the age of five - permanently skewing my sense of personal danger. Now the father of six, I try to temper my type T personality (as in, thrill seeker), as my children routinely accuse me of trying to kill them atop mountains, in heavy surf, and so on.
But I learned something today about my wife: watch for the quick strike if you threaten her in her house!