Who let the cat out? meow, meow ....

We have two cats.  We got them when the boys were small, and right away one cat bonded with one boy, and the other, the other.  So I'll call them Cat 1 and Cat 2.

Yesterday afternoon about 4:00pm I got the following text from Wife while I was at work:

I can't find Cat 1. My best guess is that he got out when I came home this a.m. w/ my arms full of groceries. I heard the door not latch but by the time I could put groceries down & return to latch it, it was 8" open. I didn't realize I was missing him til I did an immed cat check & couldn't find him. Usually if he gets out he wants rt back in, & by now he'd be howling for food. I've looked for him repeatedly outside, shaking food. No luck. I guess I'll just have to hope he really isn't lost & will come in when he's hungry enuf but I'm very worried.

Oh, just bloody wonderful.  There are so many points here that infuriate me I hardly know where to begin. Cat 1 will wander outside because he's curious, but he doesn't bolt the door; so Wife left the door abandoned longer than she says. This has happened before and I have explained strenuously that the door sometimes won't latch unless you jiggle it as you walk through, so obviously she didn't bother to remember that.  Her "cat check" was not "immediate" or she wouldn't feel compelled to use the words "I didn't realize I was missing him [un]til ...."  How much time went by?  Hours?  And her plan is to "just hope"?  I also know she doesn't really like Cat 1, so a small corner of my brain wonders if she let him escape "accidentally on purpose" but probably not.  In general she is kinder to animals than to people.  I also couldn't quite tell if she was asking me to swoop in and wave a magic wand to make it all better.

I went to no effort to disguise how disgusted I was, and wrote back:

You realize that's inexcusable, right? You could have set down the groceries on the front stoop and you could have paid attention to the door. What the fuck do you expect me to do about it? 

Her answer:

I don't expect you to do anything. I thot I HAD paid attn to the door. I will merely keep trying to get him in w/ food. Usually he's yowling for it by now, so my guess is he'll come in when he's hungry, which should be any time now.

And mine:

Meanwhile you can be walking around outside of the house looking under bushes. Or looking for bodies in streets. You can't just assume he'll come to you.

WTF took all the time btw "this morning" & now? Just waiting passively for him?

Don't waste time answering. Just go look.

Of course she did take the time to text me back, at some length, explaining all the steps she had already taken and how of course she hadn't been passive all day.  Right.  Whatever.  When I was about to leave work to come home I texted her:

Leaving soon. Hope Cat 1 is back. If he is still missing, it is probably better if you don't speak to me til he's back. Except for business, of course, or plans on how we could find him.

He wasn't back.  When I got home Wife got a large flashlight (hoping the light might cause his eyes to shine, in case he were under a bush or something) and we walked -- not together, I should add! -- up and down our block and neighboring ones, peering under cars and inside bushes.  [It will be obvious from this that we don't live in one of those parts of the country where several hours outside in this time of year would mean he had already frozen to death.]  When our paths crossed after maybe an hour I took the flashlight from her and told her to go back to the house: find out how to put a "missing cat" ad in the local paper, and make up some "missing cat" flyers to post in the neighborhood.  I kept looking.

The looking was fruitless, but she came back in a while with fifteen flyers, describing Cat 1 and offering a $200 reward for his return.  "Two hundred dollars?" I asked.  She answered, "Most people won't claim it -- they'll just say 'I'm glad you got your cat back.' But if somebody wants it, I'll find a way to scrape it together rather than have to tell Son 1 I lost his cat."

Wow, said a small voice in an irreverent corner of my brain.  She's taking some actual responsibility.  Good sign.  Shaddup, Hosea ... don't waste your time thinking (ummm) catty thoughts about Wife when there's a genuine problem to address.

Wife trudged all around the neighborhood and put up every last one of the signs.  By then it was getting late.  I offered to hang around outsdie for a while longer just to wait and watch, but it was largely because I didn't want to be in the house with Wife.  But I did suggest one other thing she could do before packing it in for the night: it might not help, but it couldn't hurt and it might help her own anxiety.  I've mentioned that Wife used to be a Wiccan; so I suggested that, if she hadn't given all that up, she cast a spell for his safe return.  And sure enough, she unpacked all her magical gear (none of which has seen the light of day in years) and did exactly that.

No sign of Cat 1 by the time we went to bed.  At that point, I told Wife, it's most likely either that he is already dead (hit by a car, eaten by a dog) or that he was scooped up by someone local who was feeling friendly and brought him inside for the night.  If the latter, they'll probably see the signs soon and call Wife's cell phone.  If the former, ... well I guess they won't.  Wife is supposed to be placing an ad in the paper today, to run for a couple of days.  I guess we'll see what happens.

In my initial proposal for the divorce I offered Wife the right of first refusal on custody of the cats.  I don't think I can still offer that, because it seems clear she can't be trusted to look after them.  Of course, we may at this point be talking about only a single cat ....