Wallace finally ventured out from under the chair this afternoon and made a beeline for the gap under our poorly installed dishwasher. He could just barely squeeze his head under there, and we stood there and laughed at poor stupid Wallace, who thought he was hiding just because we couldn't see his face. Cats!
We found out who the stupid ones really were when we left the room for a minute and came back to no Wallace, anywhere. We didn't find him in the bedrooms or the kitchen cabinets. We didn't even see him under the dishwasher. A closer inspection revealed that there was a small gap behind the dishwasher, and we theorized that he had shimmied under the dishwasher and escaped again, to under the house and possibly beyond.
I cried, because how fucking frustrating is that? After all the crap we've gone through with him, we lose him to a two-inch gap in the floor? Does he really hate us that much? Worse, were we really so dumb that we left that space open in the first place? I mean, I never dreamed he could fit under there, or if he could, that he could keep going, but still, I felt negligent and awful.
Eric examined the foundation and the roofline of the house and said there was no way he could escape. I cried harder--what if he can't get back up through the hole? I asked. I'm sure he can, Eric said. But if he can't, he's going to starve to death under the house, I said. Well, we'll just pull up the floorboards or cut a hole under the tile with a jigsaw, said my maddeningly imperturbable boyfriend. But, but, but...
We figured there wasn't much we could do for the time being but hope he got hungry enough to come back up, so we went for a bike ride and out for dinner with Roo. When we got back to the house, Roo crouched down to see the escape hatch for himself, and saw what we'd missed: A tiny little sliver of cat haunch, mostly obscured by dishwasher parts. The bastard had been hiding back there the whole time, flattened against the back wall. I guess the hole we saw doesn't actually go anywhere after all.
So now I'm feeling slightly foolish and totally relieved, and I'm wondering if we're ever going to make friends with this cat. I'm also kind of hoping he'll come out soon because we should really run the dishwasher before we go to bed tonight.
Edit, 9:56 p.m.: I forgot to tell you about the most tragic aspect of this story. Right before we'd lost him, I spent 20 minutes making him this: