Part 7: Bats
Sophomore year I lived in Wampler with Chris C. the 1st semester, before he studied abroad in Italy, and my man Zan/Zainul/Z the 2nd semester. I moved next door with Z because I got a new roommate who was mad weird, and Z was flying solo so he welcomed me next door and we had a blast that semester. He is one crazy kid, agreat friend, and a fantastic roommate! He always knew how to have fun, have a good time, and showed me some awesome new sides of dorm life. One time that semester he had left to go study or something and he calls me about 15 seconds after he left the room. Not sure why he was calling, but I answered it. All he says is, "Dude...come out in the hall." So I go, and he's ducked around the corner near the elevator, just sticking his head out, and he waves me towards him. I'm walking and he doesn't say a word, but is looking at the ground. So, as I'm walking I look down to see what he's looking at as I almost step onto something that shouldn't be there. It's a bat. I jump so high I think I hit the ceiling, but I can't be sure. I jump straight up and end up coming back down right on the bat, so I spread my legs and straddle the bat as I'm yelling "Ah it's a bat!" Obvious statement in hindsight. Well, Z just laughs and ends up saying he'll see me later, hops on the elevator and leaves. I'm standing alone in a hallway with a bat. WTF, Z? WTF?! So, I get Morgan, who lives next door, and Kelly her suitemate to help me out with this. I'm pretty sure Lindsay as gone, which is a good thing because I probably would've chased her around with it because I kind of liked messing with her the most out of those girls, and I had such a little boy crush on her. Anyways...we put the bat into a BOWL. It couldn't fly, but it could hop, hence why it was on the ground in the hallway of a dorm, then it remained in the bowl for a few hours. We eventually got some guy from maintenance to come get it and he said he'd set it free in the Arboretum on campus. A bat that can't fly being set free? Sounds more like a death sentence. RIP little bat.
End of junior year, summer time, I have another batty run-in. This one is rather short because really all I can say about it is that I was walking frommy house towards downtown with Chris H. and a few folks then we realize there is something in the MIDDLE of the dark street right where we were crossing. Turns out we almost step on it and it's a bat. Nice job scaring me from the ground again, Mr. FLYING Bat. I didn't see that one coming, once again.
Before that though, was the best bat run-in. My house in Harrisonburg was 2 blocks away from the girl's house, or my sister house as my parent's called it. They were the sorority to our frat I guess you could say. They called themselves the Safe Harbor and that name stuck for both years they were there. These were the 1st and 2nd floor Gifford girls we got so close with, then Casey from my 2k8 Orientation team joined the mix as a grad student during our senior years because Anne moved out like the lil townie she is. So...we had to come up with a house name, because the girls already had one. Yet, we all agreed that the house needed to earn the name. After a hike, that I missed, the gang suggested The Crevasse, and I had previously suggested Wayne Manor...because we had decided we wanted to try something other than our freshman dorm name, but I thought it was a nice way to remember it. But then this happened...
In my room one night, I was sitting at my desk, working at my computer. To my right are 2 windows that lead out to the roof, a tall stand-up lamp, and a small shelf. As I'm sitting there doing work, I hear a small scratch scratchscratch sound. I keep working. It's just the wind, I say. I hear it again. So I stand up, make sure to not knock over my tall lamp like I too often do, and raise my blinds. For some dumb reason I assumed that a tree, which did not exist in my front or side yard near my windows, was scratching my window. I felt pretty dumb. So, I lower the blinds, turn to go back to my desk, and see it. Inside my tall lamp, with those tops like an up-side-down lamp shade, was a little friend. A bat was curled up inside there, with its wings crossed over its face, showing only its eyes as it stared right at me. I was stunned. Slowly, I backed out of my room, closed the door and yelled, "THERE'S A BAT IN MY ROOM! EVERYONE COME HERE NOW!" Chris, James, Doug, and Christian assemble like it's their duty. Dallas was probably off drinking blood or something. If Colin and Jared had been there...Colin would've showed up with a beebee gun in hand and Jared would've been super pumped to try to kill a bat/watch Colin shoot a bat like the rest of us. I open the door, show them the lamp it's in, then we all run out again to discuss what to do. Doug silently walks off, then comes out of his room with thick black winter gloves on and flexes his fingers because apparently he intended to just grab it and run it out the front door like a scene straight out of Ace Ventura When Nature Calls....Shikaka. Anyways...I think Chris grabbed a black pillow case and we devised our plan. As a team, we were all going to go in there and make this work. A window would be opened, the pillow case would be put over the lamp, Doug in his protective gear would hold the pillowcase down to make sure it didn't escape, and some of us would pass the lamp out the window and get ready for hell to break loose. Well...it sort of went to plan. Chris and Doug end up on the roof. Chris pulls off the pillow case and Doug begins to swing my lamp, like a giant baseball bat being slammed headfirst onto the ground, knocking it against the roof. It went a bit like this, with every word being said as he hit the lamp on themetal roof: "Get. Out. Bat. Get. Out." Then we let him know we didn't see it come out, so he slowly looks into the lamp, then says it isn't there. Instantly, Chris realizes it didn't even leave the pillowcase. Doug drops the lamp and literally dives in the window as Chris just throws the pillowcase straight up in the air and it falls to the roof with a thud as he dives inside the house too. The rest of us make sure the screen is closed, help them to their feet, and we all gather to watch to see what happens. We press our faces all around the window to watch the twitching mass. Of course...nothing happens. So, Chris slowly goes back onto the roof, picks up the pillowcase and begins to shake it so the bat will fall out. He shakes and nothing falls. Then he realizes he's holding in the wrong way, with the opening facing his face. AH! I can't remember if he dropped it again or just quickly spun it around, but regardless, after some quick acting...the bat tumbled out onto our metal roof with a small THUD. Chris dove back into my room as the window was slammed shut behind him. Then we all turned around to watch. The bat simply flapped a little, twitched, and stayed on my roof for at least a half hour. Most everyone left after a few minutes, and I kept looking every few minutes, until at one point it was simply gone. After that point, I think we all agreed that 1) we handled that like true (college) men and 2) our house had finally earned its name after about 6 months.
Our house, of 323 West Market Street, was now to be called The BatCave. The name of our freshman year hall would live on through this house filled with 2 years of great times, good laughs, and incredible friendships...all thanks to a bat...plus Jared, Colin, Christian, Doug, Chris, Tyler, James (Stud), Heidi, Anne, Em, Britt, Rach, Case, and Hollins who was everyone's favorite significant other who lived just a block away...and Dallas too I guess....
So yeah...in case you were wondering who had better friends...it's not even a competition...because I win.
My friends and I build igloos, celebrate Thanksgiving together, tailgate better than you, wrestle, shoot guns, prank each other, throw better parties, went bigger on Spring Break than you, had a better living room than you, have a bunch of girls in our gang that are "SO pretty", drink Foster's like champs, graduated together, lived together, cooked together, and wrangled bats together for 4 years. My friends are awesome.
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Freshman year I lived in Gifford Hall, on the basement floor. Doug and I lived in 008, The Ocho. Our RA Chris E. decided to dub the Gifford basement..."The BatCave." We were the first Gifford BatCave, and the name has stuck to this day. We all had Bat Symbols on our doors for our names, we made lots of other batty-themed things, and we even had aBatCave Guest Book that was signed by everyone who came to our floor, including all the girls in our gang who lived on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors. Some of the guys on the 2nd floor were really close friends of ours too, and thanks to Pirate Ben, they were sort of known as the Pirate's Cove...but Cave beats Cove and Paper covers Rock. Boom. That year, thanks to plans from Chris the RA, we even painted a giant mural on the wall of Batman doing The Thinker pose with bats flying by him. We even made the light spots on the stalactites and stalagmites be our names, which we unfortunately had to paint over before we moved out or else they were going to paint over the whole wall. A few years later they painted a Joker face on the opposite wall that looks kind of weird. I also heard a rumor that our Batman mural was defaced and someone drew a mustache on him...not cool man. Show some respect. Well, Chris left us early that year in October I think, he moved on to be a Hall Director on campus, but we all still loved the guy, we missed him a lot, and the name of The Gifford BatCave lives on to this day, thanks to him and thanks to some freshman guys who really took the name/theme to heart and made sure EVERYONE knew who we were.
Sophomore year I lived in Wampler with Chris C. the 1st semester, before he studied abroad in Italy, and my man Zan/Zainul/Z the 2nd semester. I moved next door with Z because I got a new roommate who was mad weird, and Z was flying solo so he welcomed me next door and we had a blast that semester. He is one crazy kid, agreat friend, and a fantastic roommate! He always knew how to have fun, have a good time, and showed me some awesome new sides of dorm life. One time that semester he had left to go study or something and he calls me about 15 seconds after he left the room. Not sure why he was calling, but I answered it. All he says is, "Dude...come out in the hall." So I go, and he's ducked around the corner near the elevator, just sticking his head out, and he waves me towards him. I'm walking and he doesn't say a word, but is looking at the ground. So, as I'm walking I look down to see what he's looking at as I almost step onto something that shouldn't be there. It's a bat. I jump so high I think I hit the ceiling, but I can't be sure. I jump straight up and end up coming back down right on the bat, so I spread my legs and straddle the bat as I'm yelling "Ah it's a bat!" Obvious statement in hindsight. Well, Z just laughs and ends up saying he'll see me later, hops on the elevator and leaves. I'm standing alone in a hallway with a bat. WTF, Z? WTF?! So, I get Morgan, who lives next door, and Kelly her suitemate to help me out with this. I'm pretty sure Lindsay as gone, which is a good thing because I probably would've chased her around with it because I kind of liked messing with her the most out of those girls, and I had such a little boy crush on her. Anyways...we put the bat into a BOWL. It couldn't fly, but it could hop, hence why it was on the ground in the hallway of a dorm, then it remained in the bowl for a few hours. We eventually got some guy from maintenance to come get it and he said he'd set it free in the Arboretum on campus. A bat that can't fly being set free? Sounds more like a death sentence. RIP little bat.
End of junior year, summer time, I have another batty run-in. This one is rather short because really all I can say about it is that I was walking frommy house towards downtown with Chris H. and a few folks then we realize there is something in the MIDDLE of the dark street right where we were crossing. Turns out we almost step on it and it's a bat. Nice job scaring me from the ground again, Mr. FLYING Bat. I didn't see that one coming, once again.
Before that though, was the best bat run-in. My house in Harrisonburg was 2 blocks away from the girl's house, or my sister house as my parent's called it. They were the sorority to our frat I guess you could say. They called themselves the Safe Harbor and that name stuck for both years they were there. These were the 1st and 2nd floor Gifford girls we got so close with, then Casey from my 2k8 Orientation team joined the mix as a grad student during our senior years because Anne moved out like the lil townie she is. So...we had to come up with a house name, because the girls already had one. Yet, we all agreed that the house needed to earn the name. After a hike, that I missed, the gang suggested The Crevasse, and I had previously suggested Wayne Manor...because we had decided we wanted to try something other than our freshman dorm name, but I thought it was a nice way to remember it. But then this happened...
In my room one night, I was sitting at my desk, working at my computer. To my right are 2 windows that lead out to the roof, a tall stand-up lamp, and a small shelf. As I'm sitting there doing work, I hear a small scratch scratchscratch sound. I keep working. It's just the wind, I say. I hear it again. So I stand up, make sure to not knock over my tall lamp like I too often do, and raise my blinds. For some dumb reason I assumed that a tree, which did not exist in my front or side yard near my windows, was scratching my window. I felt pretty dumb. So, I lower the blinds, turn to go back to my desk, and see it. Inside my tall lamp, with those tops like an up-side-down lamp shade, was a little friend. A bat was curled up inside there, with its wings crossed over its face, showing only its eyes as it stared right at me. I was stunned. Slowly, I backed out of my room, closed the door and yelled, "THERE'S A BAT IN MY ROOM! EVERYONE COME HERE NOW!" Chris, James, Doug, and Christian assemble like it's their duty. Dallas was probably off drinking blood or something. If Colin and Jared had been there...Colin would've showed up with a beebee gun in hand and Jared would've been super pumped to try to kill a bat/watch Colin shoot a bat like the rest of us. I open the door, show them the lamp it's in, then we all run out again to discuss what to do. Doug silently walks off, then comes out of his room with thick black winter gloves on and flexes his fingers because apparently he intended to just grab it and run it out the front door like a scene straight out of Ace Ventura When Nature Calls....Shikaka. Anyways...I think Chris grabbed a black pillow case and we devised our plan. As a team, we were all going to go in there and make this work. A window would be opened, the pillow case would be put over the lamp, Doug in his protective gear would hold the pillowcase down to make sure it didn't escape, and some of us would pass the lamp out the window and get ready for hell to break loose. Well...it sort of went to plan. Chris and Doug end up on the roof. Chris pulls off the pillow case and Doug begins to swing my lamp, like a giant baseball bat being slammed headfirst onto the ground, knocking it against the roof. It went a bit like this, with every word being said as he hit the lamp on themetal roof: "Get. Out. Bat. Get. Out." Then we let him know we didn't see it come out, so he slowly looks into the lamp, then says it isn't there. Instantly, Chris realizes it didn't even leave the pillowcase. Doug drops the lamp and literally dives in the window as Chris just throws the pillowcase straight up in the air and it falls to the roof with a thud as he dives inside the house too. The rest of us make sure the screen is closed, help them to their feet, and we all gather to watch to see what happens. We press our faces all around the window to watch the twitching mass. Of course...nothing happens. So, Chris slowly goes back onto the roof, picks up the pillowcase and begins to shake it so the bat will fall out. He shakes and nothing falls. Then he realizes he's holding in the wrong way, with the opening facing his face. AH! I can't remember if he dropped it again or just quickly spun it around, but regardless, after some quick acting...the bat tumbled out onto our metal roof with a small THUD. Chris dove back into my room as the window was slammed shut behind him. Then we all turned around to watch. The bat simply flapped a little, twitched, and stayed on my roof for at least a half hour. Most everyone left after a few minutes, and I kept looking every few minutes, until at one point it was simply gone. After that point, I think we all agreed that 1) we handled that like true (college) men and 2) our house had finally earned its name after about 6 months.
Our house, of 323 West Market Street, was now to be called The BatCave. The name of our freshman year hall would live on through this house filled with 2 years of great times, good laughs, and incredible friendships...all thanks to a bat...plus Jared, Colin, Christian, Doug, Chris, Tyler, James (Stud), Heidi, Anne, Em, Britt, Rach, Case, and Hollins who was everyone's favorite significant other who lived just a block away...and Dallas too I guess....
So yeah...in case you were wondering who had better friends...it's not even a competition...because I win.
My friends and I build igloos, celebrate Thanksgiving together, tailgate better than you, wrestle, shoot guns, prank each other, throw better parties, went bigger on Spring Break than you, had a better living room than you, have a bunch of girls in our gang that are "SO pretty", drink Foster's like champs, graduated together, lived together, cooked together, and wrangled bats together for 4 years. My friends are awesome.
End of Part 7: Bats
the end.
the end.
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