Of Vampire Bats and Warm Cockles

I ran across this video at the Huffpost this morning and it reminded me of something similar that once happened to me.



When I was a little boy I found a baby bat in the yard.  He was no larger than the one in the video.  Of course, I brought him inside and put him in a shoe box where I made him a nice bed out of an old sock.  My mom got me an eye dropper so I could feed him warm milk.  My dad wanted to destroy him because bats were known carriers of rabies and he was afraid for my safety.  But I wouldn't let him do it.

To be honest, I was afraid as well.  Not of getting rabies, but of being bitten.  For all I knew, he was a vampire bat and I could see he had sharp little teeth.  Besides, bats are just scary creatures in the first place.  But my sense of compassion overcame my fear and I began nursing him. I was able to get him to take the milk from the dropper and over the next week or so he grew stronger.  I was esthetic that I was able to save this little creature and had become really attached and devoted to him.

Then, one day when I picked him up to feed him, he reached up with his little claws and grabbed onto my finger, just like in the movie.  It so startled me that I jerked my hand away, which threw him across the room, against the wall, and killed him dead.