Rats don’t live long, the first result on Google says that they live 2-4 years on average and the longest living rat in captivity lived to be 7 years old.
I like to think that after the rat’s death everyone will treasure the good memories and start another restaurant of their own. But it’s more likely that they’ll be depressed and miserable for the rest of their lives without being able to tell anyone their story.
My kid really loves the 2000s Alvin and the chipmunks movies. Dave is always talking about how they need to be like normal kids and they need to plan for the future, but on a lark I looked up how long a chipmunk lives and by the third movie they’d be like 50 in chipmunk years.
I think we’ll just assume whatever Gene makes them talk makes them live really long. Let’s do that.