A Currier House caper has its residents tickled by the second disappearance of their Sesame Street mascot.

“Elmo is gone again,” Patricia G. Pepper, assistant to the master, announced in an e-mail to a House list Friday.

“Elmo” refers to a painting of the red-furred Sesame Street character that normally hangs on the lower main level of the House. Even its name has furred eyebrows. “I don’t like that people refer to it as the ‘Elmo painting,’ because Lambchop is just as prominent in the picture,” said Kiernan P. Schmitt ‘06-’07.

For the second time this semester, Elmo—and Lambchop—have mysteriously vanished. The disappearance dashes the House’s efforts to enliven its famously dreary décor.

Artwork such as “Elmo” added “homey touches to make the wonderful House that Currier is become a home,” Pepper wrote.

Former Currier House Committee (HoCo) President Jonathan C. Bardin ’06 brought several paintings to the House following a Carpenter Center exhibition last year, according to Currier House Master Joseph L. Badaracco.

But the origins of the famed Elmo are unknown, he added.

“It was not on loan from the Fogg, however,” Badaracco wrote in an e-mail.

“Before the color, all we had were long stretches of soul-destroying, institutional white,” he wrote.

When Elmo was stolen last month, according to Badaracco, “He was returned a day or two later by a Currier House student who found him in the bushes outside the house.”

Currier HoCo President Techrosette Leng ’07 said the painting’s absence mostly bothered House administration.

“The students think it’s kind of amusing as far as I can tell,” she said.

“It’s the most hideous painting ever,” Alan M. O’Donnell ’07 said. “So, it should have been stolen.”

Students speculated widely as to the identity of the perpetrator and his motives. “My inclination was to think it was a sort of freshman-welcome prank, but that’s a random trick to play,” said Leng.

“Somebody who was drunk said, ‘I hate that thing,’ and just took it down,” proposed Joseph F. Medioli ’08, citing the frequent weekend parties in Currier as perfect opportunities for inebriated art thieves.

Wellington W. Sculley ’08, another Currier resident, claimed to know whodunit but refused to reveal any names.

“It’s like Currier’s DaVinci Code,” Schmitt said.

As of yesterday, the case remained unresolved.