Holy Cow Batman!

This morning, I arrived at my office at 7:30 am.
I wasn't alone.
My boss was already there and there was coffee already made.
Excited, I went back to the kitchenette to get a mug.

On the floor there was a small brown mass.
Since that area has only one office and that office is occupied by a lady who brings her dog in, I assumed at first that the dog had had an accident that the lady hadn't seen.
As I walked towards it I had a funny thought, "That kind of looks like a bat, haha."

I stopped dead and made some kind of noise.
All of a sudden, I was fairly sure I was staring hard at a real bat.
My boss a few offices away, said, "QSW?"
I backed myself down the hallway, never taking my eyes off the small brown mass on the floor.
"I think there is a bat on the floor," I said, as I reached my boss's office.
"WHAT?!" she shrieked and then ran out into the hallway beside me.
Both of us stared at it.
"Is it dead?" she asked.
"I didn't try to find out," I said.
We stared some more.
"I think I will call the building's deputy," she said.
"I think I need some coffee to deal with this day," I said.
"I have an extra mug," she said, and both of us backed into her office.
I sat in my boss's office, sipping coffee, and I was listening to her on her phone:
"Yes, we have a bat... (pause)... No, I didn't touch it... (pause)... Rabies are that bad in Indiana?.... (pause).... Ok, well, it might be dead, it's on the floor and its not moving....(pause)...Ok....(pause) OH MY GOD IT'S FLYING!!!!"

QSW dumped the entire contents of her mug on the floor, and then hid underneath her boss's desk, with her boss.
You would have thought we were under a terrorist attack.
My boss had the good sense to keep her coffee upright, and to take the phone with her.
The building deputy said he'd send someone over immediately.

After sitting for 5 minutes under a desk, my boss and I were feeling kind of silly.
"Let's go see where it is, " she said, and both of us crawled out to find it.
It was on the wall.
Attached, clinging to it, upside down, looking around.
The wall was half carpeting, half smooth plaster.
It was a 1970's building.

"Oh my god," my boss said covering her mouth, when she saw where I was pointing.
"I have to put up signs on the doors warning people," she said, "You stay here and make sure it doesn't go anywhere."
She was already out the door when I realized I had no idea how to stop a bat from going somewhere it wanted to go.
I decided that if the bat wanted to go to a different location, that I wasn't going to stand in it's way.
My boss returned and asked where it was.
It had crawled on the wall about 5 feet from where we had originally seen it.
My boss came and stood next to me and asked, "Should we put a box over it?"
"I think it looks fairly happy there, " I said.
"Yea, I agree," she said.
We both stared at it.
"I need coffee," I said, and made my way back into her office.
I cleaned up the original coffee, poured myself a new cup, and started a new pot.
"DON'T MOVE," I could hear my boss saying in the other room.
I froze like a deer in headlights.
After standing, for what seemed like an eternity, I realized she was talking to another co-worker who had just entered the office, ignoring the signs.
I came out of the office and the co-worker was clutching her briefcase to her chest and it looked as if she was going to faint.
"Oh my god," she said, "I thought the signs were a joke for Kent's birthday."

There was a running joke in our office from the time when Kent screamed because a cockroach climbed half-way up his leg.

"No," I said, "the bat is pretty real, and pretty scary."
The bat stared at us, he looked offended.
We stared back.
"I need coffee" the co-worker said.
My boss and I pointed to her office and didn't say a word.
The bat and the remaining two ladies had a staring contest for a few minutes.
The third lady came back, and it was three against one.
When the bat lost, he decided that it was unfair and decided to fly at us.
It would have been hilarious to see three grown ladies biting the floor all at once, and not spilling a drop of coffee between them, but since I was one of them, it was purely terrifying.
"OMG, where did it go?" my boss asked.
We froze.
And as if a gun had gone off, all three of us dashed for the farthest office.
"WHERE IS THE BUILDING DEPUTY?" I said, loudly, it had been 20 minutes.
The bat made some noise, I think he was laughing.
Evil laugh.
I was starting to think that maybe the bat had killed the deputy.
That's when my phone started ringing.
"Go answer it," my boss said, knowing my phone was in the middle of the room with the bat in it.
"This.... is NOT part of my job description," I said.
My co-worker and boss starting laughing, but it had a nervous quality to it.

My boss decided to brave it and to go into that room again.
There was a shriek, and my co-worker and I shut the door and threw our bodies against it.
"We left a soldier out there alone," I said, feeling bad.
"You go, I'll wait," my co-worker said, and I was suddenly eating my words.
I walked slowly down the hallway.
My boss appeared at the other end of it, still alive, and said, "Don't move, he's by Lois's office."
I was standing 4 feet away from Lois's office.
The bat started fluttering on the wall, apparently stuck to the carpet.
I could see the tips of it's wings whipping around the corner at me.
I felt lightheaded and when I looked at my boss, she looked like she was going to get sick.
I took a sip of my coffee to steady myself.
I noticed she did the same.
My co-worker appeared beside me suddenly and I screamed.
"Sorry, I was trying to be quiet because I didn't want the bat to know I was in the hallway," she said.
"Well, it does now," I retorted, and she and I backed down the hall, not taking our eyes off the fluttering wing.
My boss was gone.
45 minutes after we called the building deputy (who has an office attached to the building we were in) finally showed up.
He strolled in, put on a glove, detached the bat from the wall, and looked at it.
"Indiana Brown Bat," he said, "you can tell by his head, you know they are endangered."


"You know, any longer, and there would have been another one of his kind, GONE," I said, angry.

I wonder if that's how many species go on the endangered species list.