The Bat in the Kitchen

Yes, this morning, very early, I was greeted by a bat when I got to the kitchen. No, not a baseball bat, the flying kind. Kind of startled me. But what really pissed me off was that the little bugger had the temerity to make its presence known before I had even had a chance to make coffee. That's not cricket! I was made to feel rather anxious by this state of affairs, and then Waldo complicated matters by coming downstairs and plopping down in the middle of the dining room and acting thoroughly unperturbed at being buzzed by the bat. So I'm trying to get Waldo to move, but he just doesn't see what the fuss is about, and at the same time I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to make coffee while not turning my back on our uninvited guest. Perhaps stupidly, I did pay attention to it, and as a consequence I paid a price: standing at the entrance to the dining room, the thing came right at me, really right towards my face. I backed up and, having yet to receive an injection of caffeine, stumbled and... well, nothing really happened, but this was not a bright moment for my dignity, so it's a good thing it was just me and Waldo. I opened the door to the garden and after a couple of minutes the bat got itself out. I think. Unfortunately, after I opened the door I went looking for a tennis racket. When I got back the pest was gone, so can I be sure it left? Maybe it's hiding inside a ceramic vase or in some other small, dark corner. (Asun did discover the vase trick some years ago while doing some cleaning: a mummified bat!)

Well, now I've had some coffee and feel much, much better. Bat: now there's a Germanic etymology for you. I don't understand how you got from this idea of "to strike" to this flying rat. Because people tend to strike at them? (I don't think so.) In any case, it's nothing like the latinate murciélago that you have in Spanish: "blind rat." Now that's a descriptive word!