Seriously, Emme?

Emme is a chicken. When people are over that she doesn’t know – she scatters. When there is thunder far away that we cannot hear but she can sense, she hightails it for a tiny, dusty space under the basement stairs. Same with fireworks. If you’ll remember, she was once stuck in a drawer, never meowing as we searched for her.

Well, the plumbers really freaked her out on Friday. I came home before 5 because I needed to make something for a dinner we were invited to at 6:30. I haven’t been sleeping well and really needed to take a nap before we went. I threw the ingredients together and then Lloyd gave me the tour of all the things the plumbers did, then he said, “I haven’t seen Emme in a while. She must have been really scared.” We laughed and then I got their wet food ready – they always come running for that.

Well, Wally did, but not Emme. We did a generalized look-around, but no dice. We did a more thorough look-around, but no. Umm…… (At this point in the story you should know that our screen door is broken and doesn’t shut all the way if you don’t pull it and latch it. Wally escaped to the front steps because of this.) “Could she have run outside?” That is soooo unlike her, but took turns going out and calling while the other went through the entire house – opening all drawers and cabinets, moving stuff around and calling. We took all the boxes out from her basement hiding space and even looked in the ceiling holes, calling her name – nothing. No meows, no cat.

By this time, it was 6:30 and we were supposed to be at the dinner. We let them know we weren’t going to make it. Lloyd went outside to look again and I did my third check of the basement walls. The joists go out a little bit over the walls, and I had checked all of those spaces visually, but was it possible to fall down inside the wall? I moved things away, felt along the top, and sure enough -there was a between some studs that had a space. I got my phone to take a flash photo and……

Seriously, Emme?

I thought she was at the bottom, but there’s actually a bricked-up window space there and she was sitting in the frame.

Good grief. We had been in the basement SEVERAL TIMES and she didn’t make a peep. I don’t think she could climb out because that ‘wall’ is just thin paneling and she is fat and weak. Gotta give her credit, though, if plumbers are stomping over your basement stairs hiding spot, it’s time to find a new place.

We took off the paneling, rescued the idiot, and were only half an hour late to the dinner.