Have you ever been bitten by a rabid bat?

W ell, I have, and it was a bit of a bummer.

Picture this, if you dare: You're relaxing in bed after a long day at the office. You're reading a new book in between drowsing spells; it's a collection of short stories by Stephen King. Hilarious, for reasons you'll soon discover.

You roll over onto your stomach because your neck is getting a little sore from the angle of the pillow. "A mist rolled under the door, and she drew her knife..." Suddenly, you feel the world's kindest bee gently saying hello, just on that part of your back where it's impossible to scratch without some kind of tool. You turn your head just as the pretty young babysitter finds the light switch in the basement and BAT ON YOUR BACK! BAT ON YOUR BACK! BAT ON YOUR BACK!

You jump, to put it incorrectly, because you don't jump; you LAUNCH with the fiery wings of a Valkyrie, with acceleration you haven't summoned since that wolf spider crawled into the tent at Scout camp. Your arms are actually reversing themselves at the shoulder to swat the bloodsucker. The bark you bark needs another paragraph altogether.

It's not so much a bark as a war cry, from when man was monkey. You shout the demon away with the desperate yelp of an outraged caveman, commanding that the universe submit to your will. You will not abide a bat making a snack of your back, Jack. And what do you know? You scare the beast off! Victory over nature!

But now that the bat, who you've inexplicably nicknamed Chester, decides he's sucked enough blood, you encounter another problem: there's a tiny, overly-friendly vampire darting circles around your very small room, the door is closed, and you've got about 15 feet of ground to cover to get to freedom. Chester has your full attention at this point, making little strafing runs at your eyeballs, so you decide that maybe you'd just rather sleep on the couch and leave Chester the bed. Your room is now The Forbidden Zone.

So, you do a brand new dance - a mixture of the mashed potato and the marine crawl called the Dance of Despair - across the floor, all the time praying nothing furry will flap in for a landing on your forehead. You can see Chester making terrible shadow puppets against the light from the ceiling fan, and you yell something amounting to "I don't enjoy your company," though I can't remember exactly how you phrase it.

You've reached the door, you turn the knob, but as soon as you turn tail, an uncontrollable urge to play tag consumes Chester. Your human roommate is asleep on the couch, but very soon he's up and wondering which finger you've chopped off or what's on fire. He realizes you've gone insane, loping across the living room like a wildebeest, and then he sees the reason why go chirping out into the night, but not before inspecting his eyebrows.

Obviously, the next call you make is to Mommy. She says you may need some rabies shots. You drive to the emergency room. You fill out the card. There's no box for "Sneak attack by Chester the rabid bat," so you check the one marked "Other" and give them the short version.

You aren't exactly comforted when every health professional you talk to responds with "What!?" when you tell them why you're popping in for a visit. But you get your shots of immune globulin - from HUGE needles, incidentally - and promptly drive to your brother's dorm to sleep on the floor. You will never return to The Forbidden Zone. That's Chester's turf.

Your life is changed. You refuse invitations to Carlsbad Caverns. You now root for the Joker. Every squirrel, mouse or gerbil, no matter how fluffy, looks like it's about to sprout wings and give you a back rub.

You are Batman.