DEAR DIARY, I recently attended a matinee at an Upper East Side movie theater. Before the film began, I heard the repeated rustling of plastic bags behind me, which did not bode well.

I turned around to witness the female half of an older couple unfurling plastic bags of a type that new pieces of furniture are swathed in. The woman then energetically proceeded to encase her seat, and that of her companion, in the large plastic bags.

I was at first transfixed, then transported back in time to the homes of various relatives and friends’ parents whose living room furniture was swaddled in plastic seat covers to protect it from dirt and daily wear and tear.

Amused, and believing that the woman had placed the plastic over the seats to avoid stains and germs, I overheard the one word in her conversation to her companion that offered another explanation: “bedbugs.”

Sitting in my non-plastic-protected movie seat, I was suddenly a bit less relaxed as I settled in to watch the film.