At about 4:50am on Saturday morning I hear Wade’s collar tags clinking around on ceramic, as if he is licking his dog bowl. When I get up to check out what he is doing, he is hunkered down by the patio door. I take a closer look but can’t really tell. Has he gotten ahold of the extension cord and tried to drag it from behind the planter? I shove the cord back toward the wall as I grab my phone. I shine the flashlight to the corner behind the planter where I’ve just pushed the stiff black extension cord and can I see a tiny creature, looking up at me – his body no more than three or four inches in total. He is wedged between the outlet cover, which slides to the right and leaves a hole where cable TV would go, if I had cable TV. His little bat-looking body is half in, half out of that TV cable hole. His eyes glow and I jump back, turning off the flashlight. Stunned, I crouch down and hug the dog.

Now Wade knows that I know some strange critter is in the house. He and I hover in the middle of the living room, deciding what to do. When he creeps back toward that corner, I tell him firmly, “leave it,” and he does, nervously watching me, watching the corner. I decide to open the patio door, which is inches from where the bat is hiding behind the planter, wedged between an outlet cover and the hole where the TV cables would go. Surely he will sense the outdoor air and go back to the night sky, where he belongs.

We wait, pacing around the living room. I turn on the lamp furthest from the bat corner. I go into the master bedroom to see if I can tell how deeply my boyfriend Mark is sleeping and it’s clear, he’s out; emitting a cute, faint snore. I decide I better close off both bedroom doors, which makes a loud racket because of the wooden door stopper that I’d forgotten was there. Mark still doesn’t stir.

I decide to light a joint to help me think this through, and Wade sticks to my side as I rifle around in the creative room, searching for for a lighter. Even though I’ve only seen this little critter for an instant in my flashlight, I know it is a baby bat without having to look it up, or reference any Siri, Alexa or Google.

I spark up, inhale deeply and head back out into the living room, where I blow the smoke toward the bat corner.

Wade sits guard about eight inches from the bat. By about my fourth drag off this delicious Lowell Pre-Roll, I decide it will be easier for the bat to find his way outdoors if I turn off the inside light now. This is seemingly a good move, because as soon I do, he flutters upward and starts circling the room. I squeal involuntarily and watch Wade’s head do circles as he tracks this bat, way up in the top of my 25 foot slanted ceiling. Luckily, the low overhang divide is keeping the bat firmly in the airspace above the living room, and he has not ventured toward the dining room or kitchen, where I stand, sucking on my weed, wide-eyed and grinning, simultaneously shaking my head, wondering WTF to do next.

Opening the front windows seems smart, since tiny bat creature hasn’t found his way to the door yet. I creep into the living room and can hear the bat’s wings as he whips by above me. I slide both windows as wide as they go, which again, makes a bunch of noise when you do it fast. As I make my retreat back to the lower ceilinged dining room, the bat seems to swoop closer to my head and I let our another involuntary squeal of fear-delight as I scamper to the hallway clear over to the front door. Wade sits in the dead center of the living room, body trembling, tail twitching, head circling, tracking that bat.

By now I’ve crept the three or four steps back to the corner of the living room, and I take large lung-loads of weed, blowing smoke into the high ceiling area toward the bat again, and again. Watching him circle. The sun will come up soon and he can’t do this forever, I tell myself. After he takes a few more laps and I take a few more hits of smoke, he does find his way to the open window and out he goes, just like that. I am so glad I saw it with my own eyes, his tiny six inch wingspan disappearing into the barely dawning light.

I crouch down and comfort the dog, telling him the bat has left the building. I quickly close up the windows and the door and go start the coffee, not even tryna be quiet. It’s about 5:40am and I’d be getting up soon anyway. As the coffee brews, I jump into bed excitedly and see that Mark is now awake, so I start telling him about our bat visitor. He sleepily tells me about a house in Brazil, way out in the middle of some remote part of the Amazon, where they were knee deep in bats as they slept in hammocks. I knew it wouldn’t faze him.

At dinner last night as he says to me: “Pretty much anybody I know would have gone into hysterics had they discovered a bat in their house in the middle of the night. Not my girlfriend.” I found that pretty satisfying.

For more on said Pre-Rolls, check out This Robb Report. I had no idea my taste was so hipster, but there you have it.