I’ll be the first to claim that the majority of the Yale population would like to get into my pants. But stealing them from the gym while I was running was taking things a bit too far. Although I’d been told before that I could charm the pants off people, I had not realized that this talent included my own. That’s right: somebody stole my pants.

It happened in the Lanman Center. They were there during the Beach Boys, still there during P. Diddy, but by the time Def Leppard came around on my running mix — them hoes was gone. That’s right, gone. Disappeared. Gone like you were on Saturday night. Gone like George Harrison gone. (OK, that was bad, even for me.) But anywho, you get the idea. I have been de-pants-ed. And the fact that there was a bunch of used, snotty tissues in the pockets is only slightly consoling.

Although the knowledge that this person is going to be exhibiting flu-like symptoms in about a week definitely helps. (Score: Communicable diseases 1, Petty thief 0!!!)

I guess I have to give the person some credit. After all, it was a great idea: Steal the pants from the girl who’s just run seven miles so she’ll be too tired to chase you down and pummel you when she figures out what has happened. Even our thieves are intelligent — thank you Yale admissions committee! The ultimate irony of this debacle is that this person also got my keys and my key chain that consisted of a little can of Mace to be used on, well, the kind of person who would steal my pants (and my roommates, when they cross me.)

Yet, even after mining that one nugget of humor out of this whole ordeal, I’m still more bitter than orange juice after recently brushed teeth. Those pants were perfect. There was the crucial elastic waistband for the fat days (or, let’s be honest, fat semesters). They were from Old Navy back when Old Navy was good. Before Molly Simms. Before “You’ve gotta get this look!” Before the dog and the crazy bitch with the glasses. I worshipped these pants. I burned incense for these pants.

Sigh.

The art of thievery and its practitioners has plagued me for as long as I can remember. It started during childhood when my brother used to pilfer food from my Happy Meals. Although, looking back, he may have been doing me a favor. If McNuggets come from where I mcthink they do, I probably shouldn’t have mceaten them anyway. But still.

The madness didn’t stop there. My junior high functioned as your basic free-for-all. Within the first week, I’d had my first (but, apparently, not last) incident in which somebody yanked my clothes in a gym. It happened in the locker room after P.E. in sixth grade. I was about to change out of my gym uniform when an Amazon who could have eaten me grabbed my street clothes and said, “I’m stealing this now.” And since she looked like she could tear coins from my stomach and give me change, there was little I could do. With that, she sauntered off, leaving me as “property of Welch Middle School athletics” for the remainder of the day. By the end of the first year, I’d outfitted half the school in the best Limited Too had to offer.

High school wasn’t much better. My junior year, another girl stole my date during the Homecoming dance. Her success was possibly due to the fact that I was booting Jack and coke in the guys’ bathroom sink at the time. But still. Once in college, I was subjected to the fraternity-operated Yale laundry service that “lost” 90 percent of my underwear and rendered me unable to compete in the Toad’s thong contest. I still cry at night.

After this most recent occurrence, however, I’m now coming to terms with such episodes. Maybe this kind of thing HAS to happen every now and then. Maybe losing stuff and having it stolen is God’s way of reminding us not to become too attached to material things. (Oh, I do make a good point. Remind me to put it in my Palm later. I don’t know how I ever lived without that thing!) But seriously, what else can I do except file this under “the bitch-slappings of life” and move on. I’ll get over this. I still have my health, right? Although soon somebody won’t. (Hee hee!) So it seems that the old adage is true: Revenge is a dish best served cold — especially when it’s in the form of one.

Noelle Hancock is a senior in Saybrook College. She’s got a new Mace key chain and a pretty good idea of who stole her pants. You get one warning per lifetime, buddy….