When a Cowboy-Monkey Rodeo is Not the Weirdest Event of Your Evening, it is Time to go to Bed.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Cowboy-Monkey Rodeo.

I have not lost what passes for my mind nor have I become addicted to hallucinogenic drugs.

The Wife, The Peanut, and I drove up to Wilmington to catch a Blue Rocks game last night. It was a perfect night for minor league baseball. Cloudless sky, temps in the low eighties, upper seventies. The Rocks didn't play so well (which is pretty typical for them...they are a Kansas City farm team after all) but baseball is baseball and we enjoyed the action.

In between the third and the fourth inning, as the defense for Winston-Salem ran off the field and the Blue Rocks trotted on, a blue grass fiddle began to shriek its way out of the PA system. Many of the crowd, who knew what to expect, started to cheer. The Family and I simply looked around, perplexed. As the Out-of-Place-in-North-Wilmington fiddle continued to pour forth its twangy melody from the speakers The Peanut looked out to left field.

"LOOK!" she screamed. "SHEEP!"

I looked and sure enough, trotting out from the opposing team's bullpen door came four sheep, two males and two females. They ambled out onto the left field grass, looking around almost as if searching desperately for Noah and his ark, not wanting to be left behind. The crowd began to cheer louder. The sheep made it about halfway between left and center field when the bluegrass violin, which had been joined by a steel guitar, a piano, and a set of drums, suddenly took its frenzied tempo and kicked it up even faster.

The late afternoon crowd began to cheer and laugh wildly as two border collies tore from the same door the sheep had come through. Riding the backs of these beautiful dogs, resplendent in complete cowboy rodeo gear, were two tiny monkeys. They clutched the pommel of their tiny saddles for dear life as the collies raced after the sheep.

The collies corralled the sheep quickly and efficiently, like a scene out of Babe (minus the simian riders of course). Once the sheep were safely herded back into the bullpen the border collies and their tiny riders did a few victory laps around the field. People rose out of their seats to applaud the miniature cowmonkeys (cowboys? cowmonkeys? Does it work?  How the hell should I know...the monkeys were RIDING the dogs wearing patriotic rodeo shirts. At this point does it really matter what we call them?) and their mounts.

This scene was repeated between the sixth and seventh innings and once again after the game, before the fireworks began. Monkeys. On dogback. Chasing sheep. To the delight of hundreds of applauding homo sapiens. I am still not sure what is more disturbing. The whole "Cowboy-Monkey" concept or how much I enjoyed watching those little guys strut their Roy Rogers for us all.

One would think that was the strangest thing I saw that night. But one would be wrong.

The fireworks ended around 10:15. Anyone who has actually attended a Bluerocks baseball game knows what a ritual of patience it is to get your car out of the stadium area. We also needed to drop my mom back at her place so we did not get back home to Middletown until about 11:30. I got The Wife and The Peanut off to bed and then headed downstairs.

I was wide awake and craving some wine (wine drinking is very new to me. Since my diagnosis of type 2 diabetes two weeks ago (more on that later) I have all but given up beer drinking for an evening glass, or two, or more, of red wine) so I drained a previously opened bottle of Yellow Tail (not my favorite but it was open) and sat with a full glass to see what was on TV before I headed up to bed.

I scrolled around the channels but was unable to find anything of merit worth watching so I settled for Transformers 2, which I had not yet seen and since I was in need of a movie where thinking was not required or encouraged, which could in fact be a liability, I parked the remote there and sat back to watch.

About halfway through, either out of sheer boredom or sheer over consumption of wine, I nodded off.

I was awakened around 2:30 with an urgent need to pee. I cast a bleary eye toward the television screen and was mildly interested to see that Transformers had ended on Cinemax and their late night lineup of soft core porn was on the screen, in all its badly acted and silicone enhanced glory. I switched it off (no really, I did) and shuffled toward the bathroom.

I opened the door and was confronted by a sight that immediately moved the Cowboy-Monkeys from first to second on my "Most Unusual Things I Have Seen in a Long Time" list. It took my wine addled brain a good minute or two to register and recognize the name of the creature I was now watching move slowly across my bathroom floor. I looked to The Beagle for help, as the bathroom is her nightly sleep accommodation, but she looked back at me with her typical expression that managed to be completely blank, yet still retain the glimmer of interest at the prospect that I might suddenly, magically, produce a fully cooked T-Bone steak from my pocket for her to enjoy. In other words, no help at all.

I slowly realized that I was looking at a bat. A real, honest to god, non hallucinatory, creepy, hairy, winged rodent. It froze when I took a step closer to get a better look. Wings folded in, four finger like appendages clinging for purchase to my slick linoleum floor. A bat.

Once I had confirmed that a bat was indeed in my bathroom and that it did not appear ready to leap onto my neck to turn me into one of the undead, I gently exited the bathroom and closed the door, leaving The Beagle to fend for her own with the tiny invader on the other side.

I knew the sight of the bat would absolutely freak out The Wife, and I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I considered getting her out of bed to come down to "see the totally cool thing in the bathroom". Fortunately for me logic won that fight, as a year of sleeping on the couch would be VERY bad for my back. Not to mention the black eye I would certainly (and deservedly) receive. So I killed that idea rather quickly.

I stood with my back to the closed door, hearing the little Dracula thump around. I knew that I had to evict the little interloper but was unsure how to proceed. So I went to the cabinet under the kitchen sink, grabbed an old, ripped pair of shorts we now use as a rag, and walked back to the door.

I put my ear to the door and listened. Nothing. I reasoned this silence could mean two things (remember, I was still feeling the effects of the wine).

1. The Bat had overpowered The Beagle and was, at that very moment, sucking out her blood, turning her into a slightly undersized Hound of Hell.

2. The Bat was leaned against the door just as I was, ineffective but slightly functional bat ears stuck to the cold wood, trying to discern what I was up to.

I stood there (swayed there) mulling these two options and decided to just open the door because option number one would be really cool to see and option number two would be really funny if the little bat fell on its evil face when I jerked open the door.

So I jerked open the door, the ratty old shorts thrust out in front of me like the sword of Saint George, ready to do whatever battle was needed to grant me the blessing of a bat free pee before retiring for the night.

The bat lay on the floor, thoroughly unimpressed with my bravery. I hesitated for a few seconds and threw the old shorts on top of it, covering it completely. I knelt down and listened.

Nothing.

 As of this writing I still have no clue about what I could have possibly been listening for but listen I did. And I heard nothing. No noise or movement from the covered bat.

I reached down and gathered the shorts around my new little friend with the intention of taking him out and setting him free. He must have sensed my intentions (can't Batman do that?) because he reached out from the folds of the old cargo shorts and touched my knuckle, even letting out a very bat like chirp.

I am not going to admit here on this very public platform that I screamed like a girl, but I did scream, and if it wasn't exactly girl like it was damn close. I flung the shorts to the floor. There was a disturbing thud as little Dracula's head connected quite solidly with the bathroom floor.

He never squeaked again.

I closed the open window through which he gained access to our house. Then I picked up the shorts again. No movement. No chirp. Just the slight, unpleasant weight of what was most likely a dead bat in my hands. I disposed of the tiny bat corpse (Holy Rigor Mortise Batman!) in the trash can outside, turned off all the lights, and fell into my bed.

Then I got up five minutes later because I realized I still hadn't answered Nature's Call and my bladder was past calling 911 and was about to authorize a full urine dump, with or without my brain's consent.

I still can't decide which was more strange, the dog riding monkeys or my murder of an innocent bat who, much like myself, was probably just trying to find a place to answer nature's call and dump some guano.

I wonder if Batman has these problems...