A Tribute to Señor Nibbles

I think I can safely speak for all parents when I say there is no end to the list of things you never thought you’d say or do until you were suddenly doing them. Did I ever think I’d write an obituary for a rat? No. But here we are.

A few years ago, our kids finally wore us down with the “can we get a pet” requests. It’s not that Mike and I don’t like animals. Part of the problem is that we like them too much. We get emotionally attached, and we hate losing them. (Maybe someday I’ll do a post about our ferret Peso who became the most expensive pet we’ve ever had while we tried to keep him alive for way too long. I was pregnant and hormonal when we finally had to say goodbye to him, so I couldn’t even talk about it for a month.) But also, we knew we’d be taking our big world trip this year (ha) so we couldn’t commit to anything long-term.

We have a few tiny fish, but if I’m honest, fish are really just a decoration you have to feed. They’re cool, but it’s not like you get a lot of love back from a creature you can’t touch. We’re not really cat people, and a dog was out of the question for timing. Hamsters are cute but don’t really want much to do with you. Guinea pigs are (in my opinion) in the top 5 least interesting pets. All the noise and mess of a bigger animal with - in my experience - zero enthusiasm about human interactions. Birds? No. (Again, maybe a future post about my argument that if your kid made the repetitive squeaks that most birds make, you would send them to bed without dessert. Bird sounds are ANNOYING. You will not change my mind.) I love love love bunnies, but I’m pretty sure Sagan is extremely allergic. Ferrets are also awesome, but all these critters live for longer than we had to commit.

So we did some research, and across the board, rats were the recommendation. They only require about as much care as hamster, but they are smart and engaging. I’m not wild about their tails, but the front half of them is pretty stinking cute. And, bonus, they live about 2 years…which is right around the time we had before our world travel. We had so many kindhearted friends warn us that they only live for that long, but with the clock ticking, we were okay with that. We just opted to give our rats the best two years anyone could hope for.

And I’d say we succeeded at that. We got our two brothers in April 2018 (they were born on St. Patrick’s Day that year), and they had it pretty good. They were close to identical, so Sagan is really the only one who could tell them apart by looks. I could tell by their personalities, though. Señor Nibbles was the more social of the two. Noche was a bit more shy. Both were very sweet. They loved sneaking Cheerios out of our hands, for instance, and I loved how carefully they would turn their heads just so they wouldn’t accidentally bite us. You could really see them taking care not to hurt us.

I never get tired of how they hold Cheerios like tiny steering wheels while they eat them.

It’s anybody’s guess how our rats got so fat.

A couple of times we accidentally left their cage open for a few hours, and even then they were good little boys. The first time we discovered our mistake, I thought for sure we’d have lost them forever. But, nope, they just walked up to us like, “Hi, guys. Where’ve you been?” No damage done in their exploring or anything. That’s pretty remarkable for any pet, right?

COVID and quarantine also brought us a few silver linings related to these little dudes. First, we got more time with them than we’d expected. We’d had plans to hand them off to another nice rat owner when we left for our trip. Instead, we stayed home, and the rats suddenly had attention from the kids all day every day. It’s hard to say if the rats needed/liked this as much as the kids did, but they didn’t complain.

Story and her friend fashioned a sling so she could carry rats around like babies.

As the weather outside improved, the neighborhood kids started quaranteaming more - playing outside for hours, skateboarding together, and hanging out on each other’s porches. We also got two new neighbor kids right next door, one of which is a 12 year old girl. Across the street is another 12 year old girl. The OG 12yo is a very sweet introvert. The new 12yo is not an introvert but was, well, new. Story discovered that each of these girls had a fondness for our rats (Nibbles in particular), and that prompted many evenings of rats-on-laps on our front porch hammocks. Throughout this, the girls got to know each other and connected, and it was really lovely to see a friendship blossom. Over rats. Who’d have guessed that was a possibility?

The other neighborhood kids also spent a lot of time carting our little guys around. It was pretty common to see Noche or Nibbles in someone’s hoodie pouch or being fed treats by someone else. Our ratties were great conversation starters/communal toys/sort of weird little siblings. And my god were they patient with all of this. All the kids were sweet to the rats, but I still couldn’t believe how much they tolerated being passed from kid to kid to kid.

In recent weeks, Nibbles was getting especially chill. Both our guys were fat and lazy (I mean that as a compliment), but we could see Nibbles in particular mellowing out. He didn’t seem unhealthy. Just…content to be still. Then yesterday he had what looked like a bloody nose. I googled that and discovered it wasn’t blood and is common with some respiratory infections. He was also breathing more heavily, was extra lethargic, and the kids noticed he wasn’t eating or drinking. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be uncomfortable, despite what it might sound like from the description above. He mostly seemed tired.

I made an appointment for him with the vet for the next day. We all took turns letting him rest on us. He seemed most comfortable being on us. He would move to get his head resting on our fingers, or he would snuggle up more closely on our chests. All four of us humans got some time with him like this. We didn’t know the end was coming so soon, but we did know that this seemed to be what he wanted most.

The kids tried to offer him special treats and even made him a little play area. He was only interested in the snuggling.

Eventually we put him back in the cage so the kids could get ready for bed, and he could rest. A couple hours later Sagan checked on him, and he was already gone. I’ll admit it’s hard for me to type this part because tears keep blurring up the screen, but sweet Noche was still snuggled up to his brother, in their usual adorable pile of squishy black fluff. It broke my heart but also made me happy to know that Nibbles gave love to every one of his family members on his way out. I mean, honestly, his life and death were pretty close to perfect - even in my human opinion. I can’t think of a better way to go.

So now sweet Noche is alone, but he’s already getting extra love from us. And no doubt he will continue to be passed from lap to lap, hammock to hammock, eating treat after treat with all the kids who love him. These little guys brought a ton of happiness into our lives, and I hope we’ve done the same for them.

Rest in peace, Señor Nibbles. You did a lot of good in your little life.