HWGAWM Pod 109
Just catching up on the pod & the guys are talking about whether it would have >!been a good idea to throw Sam’s body on the bonfire!<. It inspired me to share my experience as I think it is relevant.
My friend & I volunteered to help build the bonfire at our local cricket club for their annual Bonfire Night festivities (every 5th of November we celebrate a group of guys who failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament it’s a whole thing.) We were piling all the donations of old furniture and things that people wanted rid of. In amongst it all we came across a dead rat.
We thought this was an opportunity to give the rat a good send off and added it to the bonfire thinking it would serve as a funeral pyre. The word “added” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, what we actually did was use a pitchfork like a catapult to send it soaring into what would become the bonfire, which totally detracted from the dignified send off we were hoping to give it.
Cut to hours later. It’s now the evening, Bonfire Night is in full swing. We arrive at the club with our wider friend group. There are some mutterings about how bad the bonfire smells this year, we think nothing of it. Smoke is hardly known for being a nice smell. We make our way to the Bonfire and holy bubonic plague… the smell.
What my friend and I had forgotten is that rats are made up of flesh and hair… two things notorious for smelling awful when burned. We do not confess our sin and instead agree that there’s something off about the Bonfire this year and wander away, innocent as anything.
>!All this to say that as bad as that poor rat smelled, I imagine a whole grown man would be a whole new level of nasal offence. Therefore, I think not adding Sam to the bonfire was actually the only good decision the characters made that night.!<