a petrified xru sms-ed me a few evenings ago when i was out with the ladies. it said that a bat had flown in and was eating the bananas.
truth be told, my family and bats have been living in harmony for a few years now.
no, no, no, we don't transform into gotham city bat fellas when there's a crisis :-)
some bats have made their home on two of our palm trees for a while now. you can tell which of the fronds are their homes. there is a nicely bitten circle all around the frond so that it collapses like an overturned umbrella and the bats just snuggle inside.
we do not know how many residents we have but we have seen at least two on some nights when we hang out on the deck. closer to midnight, they will fly in really low, and disappear into the trees.
we leave them alone, they leave us alone.
until last wed night.
i had bought this huge bunch of bananas, pisang berangan, confident that they would be polished off in no time. i always say i raise monkeys in this household from the way bananas are consumed and disposable razors are used up but the latter is material for another post.
anyway, this time the $4 bunch ripened over days and nobody touched it. yes, $4. that's a lot of bananas i tell you.
the sweet smell must have attracted the bat (cos i can't think of any other reason why it would fly in). it zoomed in on the bananas and started feasting. that was when xru freaked out and sent me that sms.
it must have been a scary sight. bats aren't exactly lovely looking creatures. a bit ominous, if you ask me.
when i reached home later, i saw half a bunch left, the eaten bits having been thrown away.
the following night, the bat appeared again. must be the same one, right??
i was sitting at the dinner table and when i saw this black apparition swooping into the living room and heading for the kitchen, i panicked and screamed, something like, the bat, the bat, and maybe i said bananas too, i dunno.
whatever it was, the bat changed its mind and flew straight out again.
that's when i decided to put temptation away. i froze the bananas.
learnt this tip from the internet. i always thought that mushy fruits cannot be frozen but they can. ok, so they look terrible when defrosted, all brown and limp but the taste is not compromised at all.
and how did they end up?
as banana nut muffins "-)yesterday, i baked two batches and brought them to the cancer soc. it was new voice club day. annie was so happy to receive them i almost made a promise on the spot to bake every week for her. but bit my tongue. better not promise what i may not be able to deliver.
btw, the bat came back a third day even though there were no bananas. maybe it's tired of the outdoors?
we keep our windows and doors closed a little early these days.
