The one in which Rachel does the walk of shame (but not THAT walk of shame)

It started the way these things always do. With bites. Multiple ones, mapping an imaginary line down the body.

When my roommate Bri told me a collage of itchy splotches had cropped up on her petite frame, I did what any good New Yorker does: I clammed up. Told no one. I even started taking calls from my work lobby – fearful that zealous cubicle mates would overhear my drawn out conversations with the Tony the exterminator and Jack, “Papa Gullo,” my semi-deaf landlord.

There’s a reason a Google search for “bedbugs social stigma” generates over 12,800 results (including one LA Weekly blog post titled “Bedbugs Finally Outnumber Hipsters in New York City”). Bedbugs in the home get you on the fast track to becoming a social pariah. It outperforms drugs, divorces and other salacious bits of gossip. And drives open, unguarded people, like me, to secrecy (cue the eerie soundtrack).

Bedbugs may just be the 2010 post-“Signs” version of an alien invasion (substitute the crop circles for bug bites). It becomes about survival – only in this case, survival of the social kind. Soon, you realize one thing. What goes on underneath your mattress is strictly between you and your landlord.

So what’s a girl to do?

After the initial shock wore off (I may have gone through all 7 stages of grief within 30 seconds flat), I did what any new lessee does: call the landlord. But Jack was not so obliging. He insisted my roommates and I were responsible. The bedbug(s) had to come in on someone's back, right?

Still reeling in disbelief, I called Tony the exterminator and set up an appointment. In the meantime, my roommates and I madly scoured the web, searching for any information on tenant rights (for more info, go here). I continued to harass Jack -- even calling him on the eve of a family wake. And I continued to keep it a secret.

Finally, B-Day rolled around. At 8:30 AM sharp, I got the call and ran downstairs. That's when I met Tony & Harry, two mealy looking specimens in overalls, who clomped up the stairs into my life.

I led them to the back room. They flip-flopped the mattresses, whipped out insanely small lasers, and "oohed" and "ahhh'd" as they scrutinized our sheets. It was a strangely intimate scene. I almost died when Tony cried out, "there's a piece of their vomit!" Any social aspirations drew their last breath.

But then it got better. In this case, better meant no rust-colored blood spots on our mattresses. Better as in no bedbugs. Not a single one. Anywhere.

Six hours later, I'm still not sure what to make of the ordeal. Was it was a fake out? A freak out? Are the bedbugs regrouping before one last, final invasion? Maybe Bri's bites were caused by mosquitoes. Maybe she just has sensitive skin.

For now, I don't really care to find out. I'm too relieved. I can talk loudly again in my cubicle. I can lay in my bed without thinking of dot-sized bloodsuckers waiting to pounce. I can walk with my head held high.

At least for now.