Some guy on Reddit just pulled an entire bat out of his car’s air intake box. And somehow, he did it with his bare hands. Naturally, the jokes kept rolling in — some people gave him credit for at least wearing gloves (a low bar, but still), while others simply couldn’t resist calling him Batman… even if they tried.
The Reddit thread r/Justrolledintotheshop is a prime example that we might just be living in one of the most fascinating — and slightly unhinged — points in human history. The internet has developed a shared sense of humor so intertwined with our own that it sometimes feels like we’re all laughing just to keep ourselves from crying. Some people even joked that this might be patient zero for Covid-26. Considering we’re not even fully over Covid-19, that’s less a joke and more a threat.
Found a bat in an air intake box
by u/Tool_Shed_Toker in Justrolledintotheshop
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by u/Tool_Shed_Toker from discussion
in Justrolledintotheshop
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by u/Tool_Shed_Toker from discussion
in Justrolledintotheshop
In the video, the original poster records his hand gripping a very much alive bat. You can clearly see the bat trying to nibble at his fingers in its attempt to break free — which is exactly the kind of visual that makes you question every life decision that led to watching it. So, of course, the comment section immediately told him to get tested before he accidentally kickstarts the next global crisis.
The original poster responded, “I admit in hindsight it was stupid and reckless. It flew into an enclosed area with other workers and customers and was resisting getting out. With animal control 1+ hour out, I took an impulsive, calculated risk to get him out to prevent others from contact.” Which, to be fair, is about as responsible as “I grabbed a wild bat with my hands” can sound.
And in his defense, the bat getting stuck in the air intake box could have caused real damage. A bat — dead or alive — would clog the air filter, and the engine would start “bogging down” because the air-to-fuel ratio gets thrown off. That’s not just a weird story; that’s an expensive repair waiting to happen.
Even after removing the bat, the engine might still idle poorly or stall. So yes, he was right to get the bat out of the car as quickly as possible. But doing it with direct contact is… let’s just say, not the recommended method in any manual ever written. At that point, you replace the air filter, maybe double-check everything else, and hope for the best — both for the car and your immune system. Because these days, the only thing people trust less than new car models is the mechanics working on them.
The bat, however, delivered exactly what the internet needed: content. One Redditor wrote, “He’s halfway to a DIY Batmobile — he just didn’t realize the ‘Bat-Signal’ was actually the check engine light.” Another asked, “Are you some kind of underworld variant of a Disney Princess? How did you manage to recapture the bat you released into the wild an hour later?” But most people kept it practical, urging him to get a rabies shot before this turns into something epidemiologists have to name. Most other people just reminded him rabies is incurable.
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by u/Tool_Shed_Toker from discussion
in Justrolledintotheshop
Because bats do carry rabies at a rate of about 1 in 25, and that’s not exactly odds you want to test with your bare hands.
All mechanics have to wing it at least once at work… just ideally not like this.
Published: Mar 18, 2026 08:22 am