Caped Crusader? Not likely!

The loquacious quiescence of the homonymous bat is thunderous in its existence. The word “bat” has many meanings as everyone who uses the English language should very well know. One form of the bat is any numerous flying mammals of the order of Chiroptera. It can also be a wooden tool used instrumentally in many sporting events such as the well known All-American sport called baseball.

You can be at bat, go to bat, bat at, be blind as a bat, bat an eye or not, and have a bat in your belfry. You can make batter, be a batter, be batted at, be summonsed to the bat cave by Alfred Pennyworth or simply go like a bat out of hell.

The most indignant "bat" in the English language, in this writer’s strongest opinion, is the big, green, sticky “bat in the cave”! This offensive conversational kill joy has ruined more moments that I care to admit.

During a verbalized pontifical manifesto there is nothing more humiliating than the realization of the “bat in the cave”! Its presence commands undivided attention! It can be the smallest minute flake of a booger or, it can be the giant, sticky, green wad of snot dancing around your nostril as you talk. It can be a peek-a-boo bat as it appears and then disappears, in and out, while you breathe, scaring the living shit out of the person you are talking to.

It is impossible to carry on a conversation with someone who is wielding the terroristic nasal mucus. No matter how hard you try to concentrate on what is being said, you cannot help but over-ride the conversation in your own head. It can be quite comical at times and down right nasty at other times screaming “DO SOMETHING WITH THAT THING, MY GAWD!”. The information being shared could be on a level of importance not to be out-done by even the Pope himself, but the volume that the “bat” is speaking, even in its silence, is at a monumental decibel level cancelling everything else out.

I've been in the situational conundrum many times. It's quite the battle that commences within my own cerebral cortex on to how to inform this person that is so close to shooting a big, honking, juicy booger at me. I have no choice but to say it out loud to them. There is no way to stave off the embarrassment. I wince and cringe in mock pain finally releasing the unspeakable, “You have a bat in the cave!” The words hang in the air like a fog as thick as pea soup, the silence is deafening and it kills the conversation instantly. Both parties stand frozen in a stitch of time acutely aware of what has been shared between the two of them. The incredibly embarrassing memory is burned into the synapses forever!

I've been on both ends of the mortifying "BAT"! I have been involved in "Boogergate" more times then I care to remember.

The course life takes after the dissemination of this information is of monumental importance. Once you’ve informed the carrier or been informed of the symbiotic intruder, what comes next is a delicate balance between sophisticated couth and trailer trash behemoth behavior. If a tissue or handkerchief comes to the rescue, I'm relieved by the manners displayed and immediately spared of any further stresses.

Now, if the sleeve or hand swoops across the nasal area, I shoot straight to DEFCON 1! The whole situation smacks with utter disgust! Did that sucker land on the sleeve or is it slumming around on the offender's hand, waiting for an opportune moment to somehow hitch a ride on me?! The imagination begins to run wild with visions of a guerilla fighter brandishing a weapon far superior to any ever seen by mankind. A minuscule mucus renegade leaving a trail of destructive snot anywhere and everywhere he can. Oh the sheer terror of it all!

From this day forward, each encounter shall forever be known to me as "Boogergate"! No snotty comments needed! Pray that you're never involved in a "Boogergate"!

Cheers!

~sankey