Will I ever be able to leave the house again without imagining a bat flying at my face?

Because that's what happened to me on Sunday night.  Hope and I were leaving to go school supply shopping, and as I opened the door to our garage...something dark that I didn't understand at all came flappy flapping RIGHT AT MY FACE.

I shrieked like I haven't in some time and promptly slammed the door shut and did what any normal woman would do in this situation...SCREAMED FOR MY HUSBAND.  He was already on his way, after hearing my shrieking which I would find out later he was quite amused by.  I told him "something" was in the garage and it flew right at me like this (flopping my hands in front of my face) and it was definitely NOT A MOTH.

He calmly said "it was probably a bat, hon."  Which immediately sent my already confuzzled brain into full

panic mode.  Because in that instant I imagined that whatever it was may have flown into the house and was CLINGING SOMEWHERE ON MY BODY RIGHT NOW.  Which, incidentally would not be the first time that I thought a wild animal was in our house.  I rotated with my arms in the air, wide eyed and yelling "IS IT ON ME?  IS IT ON ME?" while he humored me carefully inspected me and assured me that I in fact did not have a nasty, rabies infested flying rodent clinging to me.

Ok, so I started to calm down a tad.  Vince came to the rescue (as heroes do) and  just opened the door like there was nothing at all wrong and immediately spotted the unwelcome intruder clinging to our garage wall.  "Yep, it's a bat."  Hope and I decided to make a run for the van - actually it was only me running and crouching, she happens to think bats are "cute" and wasn't at all freaked out by it.  Whah?  What 13 year old girl isn't freaked out by bats?  Mine, apparently.  Ok,  good for her.

So we backed out onto the driveway and watched as Mr. Calm grabbed a rake and escorted the creature out of our living space and back into nature where it belonged.  He wasn't at all phased by it maniacally flying around his head - back and forth and back and forth (which I found freakishly attractive).

After numerous fly-by's he finally smacked it down and swept it out onto the grass.  Upon which time, he puts the rake away and starts heading back into the house.  As if I wasn't going to freak out again.  As if. "YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE A DEAD BAT IN THE YARD!"  He assured me it wasn't dead, he just knocked it out - which must have been true because it was gone the next morning, hopefully never to visit us again.

So now, as you can imagine, for the past three days I've been a bit freaked out - every time I have had to go into or out of our garage (I never realized until now how often I do this in a day).  Now, not only am I obsessively checking the mouse traps (we've caught two this summer - in the garage, thank you), but I am opening the door vewy vewy slowly and trying my hardest not to imagine something flying at me and getting tangled up in my hair AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!  STOP IT!!!!!  I can't talk about this anymore.