Neither does pulling a bush out of thin air when you decide to try sneaking.
Haha, I believe the whole sneaking animation implementation is another developer joke. I particularly enjoyed the snowman sneak in hiberheim.
However this may not make sense but this doesn't break the story as picking certain quest item without good reason do. Either we can see it along will all the junk in the chest (I am sure you don't need a chest to hold just a panty, no matter how smelly!) or we don't unless certain conditions are met
