So I'm googling "Recovering Iowan" tonight just for kicks (since I realized googling old boyfriends is no longer a good idea) and stumbled upon this news story from MSNBC entitled "Iowa woman finds drowned bat in tea mug", with a quippy tagline, "Unfortunate mammal found at bottom of cup after all-day sipping"

OK... that's pretty freaky. I'm thinking I might have died from that one... OMG. Seriously. A frickin' dead bat in my tea?? Yeah, no - I think I would have just evaporated or spontaneously combusted at the point of discovery - probably would have just lifted out of my shoes and clothes like those quaint and delusional rapture people talk about, only this wouldn't have been rapture... more like lethal horror.

To quote the article, "The brown bat, about the size of two tea bags, was found a few weeks ago by a 60-year-old Woodbury County woman..." Gosh, I didn't know bats were measured by the "tea bag standard"... who knew? I think I shall never look at a tea bag in the same way ever again... I will be sure to inspect for wings and creepy little rodential faces before sipping my Earl Grey... 

I also loved the following tidbit: "The woman, who declined to identify herself, told Cipperley she found the bat when she was cleaning out the mug at night. She said she put the bat in a plastic bag before alerting the Siouxland health office the next morning."

OK, only in Western Iowa would a 60 yr. old woman find a dead frickin' bat in her teacup at the end of a long day of sipping on said dead rat... then have the presence of mind (and Girl-Scout-on-steroids practicality) to place the disgusting little tea-logged critter in a frickin' plastic bag, and then go to sleep, and then get up in the morning and alert the authorities! Geezus - I would be so busy vomiting and hyperventilating and spraying bleach in my mouth and having a coronary or something that preserving this freakish dead thing for "the authorities" would be about 8,754th on the list of priorities at such a moment.

The article ends with a wonderful Iowa-esque quote from the program manager at the lab where the "unfortunate mammal" was sent for rabies testing - "We test many, many bats," he said, "but none that have drowned in a cup of tea before."

Ya think? 

Now I'm waiting for a bat to drown in someone's beer... and not be discovered until after "all-day sipping". OK, I'm going to start inspecting my beers more closely now, too. Geeeeeze!