Nothing can ruin a perfectly beautiful spring morning in the suburbs like the sight of a wild animal that has chosen your lawn as its final resting place. And not just because dead animals themselves are disturbing, but also--and more so--because it is now your job to be undertaker for the dead thing.

If you take John Mellencamp's (or whatever he was called back then) song...read more

Fortunately, it doesn't occur too often, but it has happened a handful of times during my 13-plus years of suburban home ownership. I've gotten better at handling it over the years, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant.

It just happened again to me last week with a dead bird, and, like with any death, I went through the classic five stages.

Denial: When I first spied it I hoped it was just sleeping. Birds sleep on lawns in broad daylight all the time, right?

Anger: By the next day, I knew it wasn't sleeping anymore. It was dead and I was pissed that it decided to make it my problem by expiring here

Bargaining: I was expecting the lawn guys to come and mow the next day. I'd leave the bird a little longer. Maybe they'd take care of it. If not, then I'll do it.

Depression: Lawn guys leave, bird remains. Crap.

Acceptance: I get shovel in one hand and garbage bag in the other and get down to business.

I remember my first dead animal experience vividly. Like any good suburbanite, I was using a leaf blower to clear my deck of anything not heavy or nailed down, when something hanging under my siding went whack, thump, flop into my window well.

My deck is built around the window well, so we have a removable wooden cover over the well so we can access it when needed and not have children falling into it when we don't. The object bounced right through the slats in the cover and into the well.

Peering between the slats, I could see a baby bat clinging to the side of my foundation. Having never seen a bat outside of a zoo before, and not believing there were any in my area (I was wrong, obviously), I thought perhaps it was one of my kids' toys that I just happened to never see before. (See Stage 1: Denial.)

I still took the precaution to look around and make sure there wasn't a momma bat around waiting to swoop down and kick my ass for blowing her baby into a hole.

I came out the next morning and peered into the well again. The bat was still there. So I thought to myself: He must be stuck and can't get out. I'm a genius, right? So I took the cover off the window well and walked away.

I came back an hour later, and the bat was still there. Ah, you idiot, I thought to myself, it's daylight-he's sleeping. So I put the cover back on, coming back after dark to take it off again.

Day three of the Bat Incident. I come out in the morning to make sure he's gone and put the cover back on. But he was still there. Great, I thought to myself, he must like living in there. Fortunately, I'm a genius: Tonight, after he flies out, I'll sneak out and put the cover back on so he can't get in.

Yes, I'm a fully functioning adult. Why do you ask?

Anyway, when I snuck out at night with my flashlight, I saw that he was still in the window well...in pretty much the same position he'd been in for the last three days. That's when I realized he was dead. So what do you do with a dead bat?

I called animal control for help. I explained my problem and waited for their experienced insight, which said words remarkably similar to "get a garbage bag and throw it out."

So there I was with a garbage bag and two snow shovels (I'll explain in a minute). The window well is right below my dining room window, and, in a very masculine tone I instructed my wife to keep my young son away from the window. The implication was that I didn't want him to see the dead bat, but, really, I didn't want him to see me making that oooh, icky face as I dragged the thing up.

The well was about a foot and half deep. I didn't want to touch the thing -- even with gloves -- so I decided to use the two snow shovels like salad tongs and scoop him out (the well wasn't wide enough for me to get away with a single shovel).

Using one shovel, I knocked the bat from the side of my foundation into the leaves lying on the bottom of the well. I placed the shovel down about an inch away from him, which caused a Rube-Goldberg combination of leaf moves that resulted in the bat's wing moving, which resulted in me jumping back about three feet.

Once again certain that the bat was dead, I renewed my efforts. Using the two shovels to gently lift the bat and place it the bag I had laid out for it.

As you can see, there's a big difference between my first dead animal encounter and my most recent one. The things that remain the same are that dead animals are both gross and a nuisance. I hope that this doesn't happen to you or that, if it does, the things dies close enough to your property line that a quick flick will make it your neighbor's problem.... ...read more blogs