wailey!, originally uploaded by estacey.

Saturday I did a search for Wailey in the enclosure since he hadn’t been out that I had seen since before Thursday. This would not be odd behavior for Bjorn, but it was odd for Wailey. Usually, within three minutes of me putting a pile of food out, Wailey is munching away at it. Thursday before work he ignored the food… Now Saturday, same thing.

A search of the enclosure turned up nothing. I yelled for Chris to come help me, starting to panic a little. Chris couldn’t find him either.

He agreed with me that there was pretty much no way he got out of the enclosure on his own.

This means - someone took him. Maybe one of the landscaping guys came back after they did their landscaping gig… After all, they’re all Brazilian... Maybe Wailey reminds them of home. I dunno.

I can’t even go into how upset I am. Suffice it to say, I spent the rest of Saturday miserable crying, and have spent ever since miserable with the allergies that caused. I’m typing this with half-closed eyes.

I am going to put up a sign up saying to please bring Wailey back, that we miss him, and that we are heartsick worrying about him, in case the person who took him is someone who comes by regularly. I get sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I have hopes that whoever took him will realize a 12-lb tortoise isn’t the most fun of pets or very easy to care for – not to mention when he poops, whoa mama – and they’ll put him back. Let them have a kind heart that way!

In the meantime, Chris is making plans on how to enclose the front porch area with a locking fence. It’s a sad thing… But obviously our neighborhood isn’t safe enough, and not safe to leave Bjorn out and George when George goes running out in the enclosure, either.

Sad, sad, sad.

¶ 8:31 AM