Saturday, December 29, 2012

Eulogy for Rat Bastahd

Jack Freakin' Bauer
 Jack Feakin' Bauer was a rat bastahd.

He was also a guinea pig full of awesomeness, even if he preferred emo when it came to music.  He was also a punk guinea pig that came to us a few years back after sharing his cage with a rat for several years.

He was Pi's in that he chose to hang out with Pi.  Pi used to yell at me for buying him yogurt treats and chew toys saying I spoiled him but he would look at me with that awesome little face or sing a little song to me and I would cave and buy him yogurt treats to sneak to him on the weekends when Pi wasn't here.  Sometimes I left them on top of his cage hoping Pi would relent too.  Given that they were often gone by the weekend, I suspect he relented more than he wanted to let me know.

He liked to sit on Pi's head and listened to Pi as he played, sang and would rant about life, the universe and everything.

I just bought him a chew toy for Christmas that hung off the top of his cage because, well, it was Christmas and Jack was full of awesomeness and needed something fun to play with.  I suspect it was appreciated it.  I was going to talk about it with him this weekend to make sure it was cool but as luck would have it, this morning Mr. Bear went in to feed him to find the cage open and a stained glass box Pi made a couple of years ago sitting in the cage with a note.

It started off, "So yeah... I died.  What did you think I was a vampire or something?"  He requested to be buried by the left corner of the red shed in our yard and a solid marker ("No lame ass tombstone for dogs.")  So the garden angel that was in front of the shed has moved to the left of the shed to show clearly where he lies.  I left him some honeycrisp apples so he wouldn't be hungry waiting at the rainbow bridge with Ms. Kitten, Pusselle and Moses.

As Mr. Bear and I complied with his final requests, I started singing "I'll Fly Away."  Flatfoot 56 recently recorded it and it's been an old favorite of mine, so it seemed appropriate.  Mr. Bear asked what was the proper punk anthem for him, so I sang the chorus from the Dropkick Murphy classic "Fields of Athenry," a favorite of his (he used to sing it with me when I sang it to him) and then a chorus of "Amazing Grace" (covered by both the Dropkick Murphys and Flatfoot 56).  As I write this, I have a playlist of those along with "You'll Never Drink Alone" by the Skells, "Good Rats" by the Dropkick Murphys and some others Celtic Punk favorites.

So Jack Freakin' Bauer, rest in peace you rat bahstahd.  We'll miss you but your awesomeness could only be contained on this planet for so long before you became a shining star to help guide the boy along.

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