By: Kent McCarty
Dysfunction Junction chronicles the unfortunate strings of events that plague my life. Everything below is true, and that’s what’s scary.
I am scared of only two things: clowns and bats. And while the clown phobia has deep roots all the way back to my childhood, my fear of bats is relatively new. On what seemed like an ordinary Friday night, my view of the blood thirsty little creatures that I once thought to be harmless was changed forever.
After a long week spent doing hours of homework, my friends were relieved that Friday had finally come. We decided to go see a movie, but the events that occurred after were so horrifying that I can’t even seem to remember what exactly we saw.
After we left the movie, we all took a pit stop at Wendy’s for a quick bite to eat, but I never made it inside. Sara [Sanner] and I were the first to arrive at Wendy’s, followed quickly by Nolan [Johnson]. Before Sara and I had the chance to get out of the car, Nolan tapped on my window and said he had to tell us something. While he was telling his story, the unthinkable happened. A small bat swooped down from the night sky and rammed Nolan right in the temple, and then proceeded to fly into my car through the open window. My heart skipped about seven beats when I realized that the bat was not just inside my car; it was perched on the driver’s side door, less than three inches from my left arm. As the bat and I made eye contact for what seemed like half an hour, I realized just how frightening bats really are with their beety little eyes and razor sharp fangs. After I finally came back to earth from my horrified daze, I managed to guide the bat out of the car and then quickly roll up the window. As I breathed a sigh of relief, I realized that Nolan was still stuck outside and surely having to fight off the same bat that had attacked him a few short minutes before. I quickly unlocked the door and let him in the car, where he screamed that he’d “been bitten” and rocked in the fetal position for several minutes.
Thankfully, we all survived that encounter with a blood thirsty killer, but I lose sleep every night knowing that next time we may not be so fortunate.
