Coffin Attire

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Something I found amusing about the 2nd ep of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire on AMC is at one point we see Louis open up his coffin with him inside it and he's wearing pajamas - and what look like very expensive pajamas at that. Can you even imagine Barnabas wearing pajamas in his coffin - very expensive or otherwise?! I mean, he went to his coffin wearing a full suit. He never even went to it wearing his smoking jacket. And I'm sure more than once Barnabas was not only wearing a suit, he had on his cape as well (shades of Sam Evans' Ghost appearing wearing a rain coat (and sunglasses) because he was apparently buried with it (them))...

 

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Yes, Barnabas was always formally attired when he would retreat to his coffin at dawn: in 1797, 1840, 1897, 1967 to 1970 and even in 1995.

One aspect of Barnabas’ 170-year confinement in that coffin in the secret room of the Collins Family Mausoleum is that I wonder for all those many nights Barnabas was chained up in that coffin, did mice, squirrels, bats or other small critters somehow find a way into the secret room? And, if they did, can you imagine how annoying, if not downright grating, it must have been for Barnabas to be stuck in that coffin wide-awake for twelve hours each night, with those little stinkers running continually back-and-forth and up-and-down on his coffin? The poor guy must have felt like he was going round-the-bend from having to hear that incessant scratching of their little claws on his coffin!

Although, there might have been one positive aspect of having those squirrels scampering all over Mr. B.’s coffin; I have noticed over the years that squirrels will sometime climb onto my cyclone fence and literally gnaw at the metal bands, which keep the fence material attached to the metal poles driven into the ground. These squirrels must have some incredibly strong teeth to chew right through those metal bands.

So, if those persistent squirrels had kept chewing on those iron coffin chains over those 170 years,  maybe Barnabas could have gotten out of that chained coffin many years before Willie Loomis ever decided to break into the Collins Family Mausoleum in an attempt to steal the famed Collins family jewels?