The Three Burials of the Taco Bell Chihuahua

After a week, my grief has finally subsided to the point where I can talk about the tragic, tragic loss of an icon. I’m sure people have expected me to address the loss before now, but I have been so paralyzed by sorrow, it is only today that I can summon the fortitude to make a brief statement about the tragedy.

Like many of you, I have spent the past week mourning the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

There are no Taco Bells in Boston, but if there were, I’m sure they would be surrounded by a throng of mourners holding vigil, rocking back and forth softly so as to not put out their candles, sobbing while singing “We Shall Overcome.”

As with past circus acts funerals, the company of strangers can be cathartic indeed, and sharing one’s grief has been proven an effective panacea for the pain that seems so unlikely to be conquered.

I myself have mourned more privately. This was, of course, the family dog, a rascal yapping around in the foreground of family pictures, barking happily in the background whenever I called home.

The Taco Bell Chihuahua was not just our dog. He was ...

(Breath hitches)

(Pause)

(Steps away from the lectern)

(Collects himself)

He was a member of the family.

It is a tough loss indeed. I’ve been in a glass case of emotion the likes of which would make Ron Burgundy’s mustache fall into his scotch.

First, I refused to believe that I would ever enjoy a cheesy Gordita without that scamp trembling with excitement at my feet. Preposterous! Absurd! This thought made me angry indeed, and I cursed God and His plan, shaking my fist at the heavens from my throne, which I always feel compelled to sit on after a Taco Bell visit. Soon, my cursing subsided, and I found myself trying to make a deal with God, begging him to take me instead of the dog, to visit His wrath upon me so that the world could still bask in the presence of the warm, liquid eyes of the dog. The thought that the world would never once again have the pleasure of its company saddened me to the core. The World had lost its chief stereotype, and nothing can ever bring him back.

Last week, God saw fit to pluck from this Earth a true luminary of the arts, a figure who inspired nations and whose departure leaves a singular chasm of sorrow so deep it is unfathomable.

But this last thought consoles me. We were lucky enough – indeed blessed – to have had the Taco Bell Chihuahua in our midst, gracing us with his sonorous voice and regal bearing. His beauty now graces that big Taco Bell in the Sky, and it brings me peace to think that, when God ends my days, that little Chihuahua will be waiting up there, probably trembling behind a chair somewhere.

Tiny in stature, indeed, but a giant walked amongst us.

May it rest in peace.