On The Sly

Bob strolled into Pat's work area and grinned, "Did you see that?" I looked up. Bob's grin was a healthy one. He knows his colleague Pat pretty well. Bob looked at me and pointed to the lobby area behind me. "I just saw a bat," he said.

Pat dropped my Canada-bound envelope and yelled, "What?" Within a few seconds I heard a lady scream behind me. I turned around just in time to see a bat, a flying black ugly bat, swooping towards my head. I ducked and when I turned around, Pat was gone. She pulled a Harry Houdini disappearing act like the Plattsburgh Post Office has never seen before!

About a dozen postal customers ducked and dodged as the bat circled around the lobby. There were customers of all shapes and sizes and they were twisting and turning and jumping in awesome fashion. I thought it was Saturday night at Tabu Night Club.

As for myself, I feigned bravery and swatted at the bat whenever he came near, using my hat for self-defense. Then I remembered something about these bats. I remembered when I was a kid somebody told me how they land in your hair and lay eggs and you go crazy. I quickly put my hat back on my bald scalp.

But I didn't feel safe. Looming large down the back of my neck was my new fashion statement, the ponytail! What a landing strip that would make for the world's only flying mammal. I cursed to myself for growing my hair long.

Meanwhile, the bat took a breather, perching near the ceiling on a window curtain to assess the havoc he had caused thus far. That gave me time to realize that here I was, waiting for Pat to return, standing in the post office lobby in my shorts.

I never wear shorts in public. The only time I have ever been caught in public in shorts is when I was visiting California and no one knew me, or on the beach in Maine. Otherwise, no matter how high the temperature, I'm a blue jeans guy year round.

But, in the past two weeks, through the encouragement of a certain someone, I've decided that vanity goes out the window. I'm going to be comfortable in shorts. So there I was, hairy legs exposed to provide a perfect spot for this ugly bat to land and lay eggs and make me go crazy.

Finally, someone came to rescue the customers in distress. Scurrying into the lobby, trash basket in hand, was Bryan. The one and only Bryan who gets the call whenever there is an emergency at the post office. And, definitely, this was an emergency. I knew that bat, flying helter-skelter in the lobby, stood no chance with Bryan in pursuit.

This is Bryan Foster, the same Bryan Foster who became a legend in the Empire Football League for his one-handed catches. Bryan could turn an uncatchable pass into a touchdown. Within a minute, Bryan had trapped that lobby-wrecking bat in his basket.

Other would-be bat-killers suddenly arrived on the scene. Linda, who is known for her fear of spiders, apparantly doesn't fear bats. She arrived on the scene with a broom -- a huge broom -- a broom the size of Nebraska. But Plattsburgh's "Bat-Man" had already finished the job. Suddenly, Dennis and Gene, a couple of the head-honchos, arrived, ready to yell, "Hey, cut that out" to that pesky bat. But Plattsburgh's "Bat-Man" had already finished the job.

Amidst it all, the calmest person in the building was a little old lady in a wheelchair. She never batted an eyelash. She just watched all the customers doing the Bristol Stomp, the Mashed Potatoes and the Macarena. It sure was quite a scene in the lobby of the post office.

Don't ask me what family this bat was from. I don't know if it was a Horseshoe Bat or a Moustached Bat or a Vampire Bat or a Sucker-footed Bat. I just know that Plattsburgh has a Bat Hero. Get him a tee-shirt with a big "B" on the chest. Our own Bat-Man, Bryan Foster!

Meanwhile, has anyone seen Pat?