When I was a kid, I had a pet mouse.

In fact, between my sister and brothers and I, we literally had hundreds of mice. Instead of a cages, we used old bookshelves with wire mesh across the front, and holes drilled in the shelves with ladders so that the mice could move from shelf to shelf. If was almost like a mouse village, with certain groups of mice ruling certain shelves. It looked kind of like this:

Because there were so many mice, they didn't all get a ton of attention, and, for that reason, some of them were really mean. Mean to us, and really mean to each other. I did have one favorite one though that was a mix of black and white. He was easy to pick out so I played with him a lot and he got to be very tame. I even taught him how to walk a tightrope. Kind of like this guy:

Sometimes when people would visit us, mom would say "get your mouse and show how he can walk the tightrope." Needless to say, I was very proud. One day, we were out practicing in the yard, and my mouse was taking a break walking around in the grass. I didn't keep an eye on him, and when I turned to look for him, I knelt right on top of him. When I picked him up, he was convulsing. And he actually died right in my hand.

I was so sad, but my sister and brothers thought it was funny. I hated them for weeks after that. To this day, they still tease me about killing my tightrope-walking mouse.