I've been rocking this single mom thing for two months now. In that time, I have had tears, 3-year-old breakdowns, a pair of mice in the kitchen, 100-degree temperatures that leave me wanting to die, and now, a bat.

Monday night, about 10:30 p.m., my bedroom:

It was a late night for us. We were just about to turn off our nightly movie when our cat jumped up and started spinning in circles. I assumed she was chasing the fan and my son and I were cracking up. And then I saw the shadow.

I stood up and tugged the light cord on the fan. And a bat came flying toward me. Of course I screamed and ducked. My son started screaming, "What is it?!" while crying hysterically. I kept telling him to run to me - and the door - instead he cowered on the side of the bed, crying and screaming like he was on fire. I ran for the door but didn't want to leave my son in the bedroom alone. Then the bat came back at me. While I am sure that he wasn't necessarily aiming for me, it sure felt like it. I also had felt something weird in my hair a few seconds before and cannot be convinced that the bat was not, at some point, nesting in the massive curls of my hair.

What's positive about the bat coming for me is that I was able to get it out of the bedroom and close us both inside. I then grabbed the phone. My first call was to my estranged husband who, of course, didn't answer. Then I called my mother and my friend and then my landlord. My friend suggested a tennis racket, which I don't have. My mother laughed at me and said, "What are you going to do?" My estranged husband finally called back and laughed. My landlord didn't answer.

As I was talking to my estranged husband, the phone rang. It was the landlord. He offered to send someone over in the morning if that would work for me. Three guesses as to whether or it was going to work for me. He then offered to head over and I jumped at the opportunity to have him handle this mess for me. I'm not Bear Grylls, The Crocodile Hunger or one of the cool Cajuns from "Swamp People." I don't know jack about getting bats out of a house.

I called the estranged husband back and gave him an update. Then I handed my son the phone with instructions to stay in the bedroom and talk to his father while I went out into the dark house to locate the bat, a broom and to unlock the front door for my landlord savior.

I made my way into the kitchen, slinking around doorways like I was a cop (minus the gun and Taser) searching for a serial killer. The kitchen was clear so I grabbed the broom. Then I tentatively made my way through the rest of the house. Finally, the bat was located, flying around the ceiling fan in my son's room. I quickly closed both doors to his room and turned on the porch light. With my house lit up like a Griswold Christmas, I stepped into the bat cave to turn on the light, squealing and screeching like a little girl with a skinned knee, before closing the door back tight.

I went back to my bedroom to check on my son again, who was still whimpering and on the phone with his father.

"Did I just hear you scream," his father asked, chuckling.
"NO!" I emphatically lied.

I went back to the front porch to wait for my landlord who showed up shortly with a broom of his own. As we opened the door to the bat cave bedroom, the bat - who was tiny but looked like a massive vampire bat straight out of Bram Stoker's nightmares - ran into the fan blade and got knocked out - and flew right toward me. I may or may not have screamed then. The landlord, not content to have gotten out of bed and dressed for naught, then beat the bat to death with his broom, which he then fed to my cat. I saw it this morning, minus its head. Apparently that's the tastiest part. Either that or she wasn't hungry for bat Monday night.

So my son's room has been quarantined for the last few days. Every morning and evening when I open the doors I expect to see a throng of bats nesting on the bunk beds or Kiefer Sutherland hanging out with the rest of the Lost Boys in the closet. So far I have lucked out.

This historic house has turned into a haunted house recently. My crazy across-the-street neighbor did inform me one day when she was passing by that someone in the neighborhood has been "doing hoodoo," so maybe some of it crept over to my place. But that's another tale for another time.