When I moved to Edinburgh and lived in a student flat we decided we needed pets.
Gerbils were chosen as they were small, cute, and easy to hide. (Because we weren't actually allowed to keep pets ..)
After a few years of gerbils we graduated to rats. The king of the rodent world.
Rats rock: They are small, cute, agile, incredibly soft, very non-bity and highly intelligent.
Time passed and I moved out to live alone and then started to move up the food-chain with my own pet cat. (Tigger).
Badnesstm happened, and Tigger was "replaced" by Six.
I got hit with a year of illness, mostly, and so I decided to do the decent thing and return Six to somewhere where he could be loved and get the attention he deserved.
Since then I've been petless, and basically afraid to commit to looking after a cat/dog for the 10+ years that they would (hopefully) live. I want to have a cat. I would love to own a Dog, and after talking about things in a circular fashion for many weeks with my girlfriend we decided to compromise.
So … tada .. I have rats again. Two beautiful females.
Here is a picture of one of them upon my girl's shoulder.
So two rats, Basil for me, and Moptop for Meg. All being well they will live for the next couple of years, and then we might return to the bigger pets.