And then all of my underwear disappeared.

So I was talking to a friend of mine last night and the subject of underpants came up. Obviously. He mentioned that a photo I’d taken a few years ago of his underwear had been picked up and tagged or something on Flickr. I say “or something” because I don’t understand a lot about what happens on the internet or how to properly use Flickr to its fullest potential. But I like to look at pictures on it that my friends post sometimes, and so I suppose that’s good enough.

Anyway, you might be wondering why on earth I’d take a picture of a friend’s under garments. To be clear, this isn’t a habit of mine and usually I totally respect your underpants privacy. However, I believe said friend lost his right to privacy when he decided to leave his grody underwear on my towel.

I know, right?

Case in point. 

Perhaps I should’ve been flattered that he felt so comfortable with me and our friendship to be doing such a thing. Or perhaps you might think that he was raised by a pack of wolves. Either way, our friendship survived this indiscretion because I’m a kind and decent human being. Also, because he lives in LA and I no longer invite him over.

Regardless, the whole point of this rambling is because he mentioned that the guy who tagged this picture is named the Underwear Bandit or something like that, and that reminded me of the actual underwear bandit that raided my home and my delicates back in 1999.

First of all, I think it should be noted that I lived with four other girls and it took us about a week to realize that we’d been robbed. To be fair, we were all very busy doing very busy college things, and second of all, paying attention to detail or the obvious was not any of our strong suits. Apparently.

But you’d think our first clue would’ve been that our back door had literally been broken so that the Underwear Bandit(s?) could get in. But we all just thought that our lock was a little loose/not working and that that’s what happens with old houses. You know, old houses just sometimes inexplicably dislocate locks from the door frame and stuff. It could happen. Or maybe we were haunted by angry ghosts who hated doors.

Whatever, the point is that it took us some time.

The second clue should’ve been that my room had very clearly been ransacked. Granted, when I say “room” I mean “the enclosed porch I lived in with all of my miniature IKEA furniture”, but it was still mine and it was lovely. Also, when my roommate and I walked in and my stuff was thrown all over, shades eschew, etc., we just thought that one of the other roommates needed to borrow something of mine in a rush. And then had, I don’t know, a psychotic break that prompted her to, like, knock everything else in the room over on her way out. Or something.

Anyway, as the week wore on, so did my growing concern over my lack of underwear. But since this is a weird problem to have, I decided not to say anything to the other girls because maybe I just lost all of mine? I mean, maybe it was…hiding? I wasn’t sure what I thought happened, to be honest, but it took about a week until I was finally like “Ok, for real, where the hell is my underwear?” And thus, the floodgates were opened.

Apparently, two of the other girls were in the same predicament and we were all walking around all ladylike not wanting to say anything, yet doing our laundry every two days. Finally, we put the broken lock, my ransacked room, and our lack of delicates together and called the police.

So could you describe to me the
type of lace again? I want to
make sure I have this all right. 

However, the City of East Lansing only added insult to injury when it sent its hottest and youngest police officer over to our house to take our statements. We for real couldn’t form words. I mean, we were 21 years old and describing our underwear to a hot cop. Unfair, universe, unfair. Unless HC decided that any of us was cute and asked us out and then this would be one hilarious and amazing rom-com meet-cute.

But then this would be an entirely different story and I wouldn’t have been walking around commando while talking to a 23 year old police officer about my porch room and underpants.

In the end, we never did figure out who took our underwear and why, though if I was the betting kind, my money would be on HC. I mean, obviously. And regardless, in the very beginning I did promise you all stories about my underpants. So there you have it. 

Happy Wednesday!