My Lemon Fresh Life: A Look Into Exotic Pet Rats [PHOTOS]

This is Clarissa, she's a bit over a year old now, but when I got her she was only a couple months old at most: still a baby after being weaned. She was a feeder rat, not meant to be a pet, but my girlfriend at the time kept leaving her feeders at my home and after 3 days of taking care of her I couldn't see her go. It was rough at first, because she didn't even want to be picked up or touched and I was not experienced with rats in the slightest. These are our early pictures together, which I will always cherish. That handkerchief was a "blanky" of sorts for her, since one cold morning I wrapped her in it and put her down at my side while I played video games and shivered in the cold. She was bundled up and warm, and I like to think she knew then that I was going to take care of her. It was her first time napping with me and we've been best buddies ever since. Since then she's gotten a friend, Bubbles. If you want to see more pictures and read more stories, like this post and I'll continue.

P.S. The bottom pictures are just flipped and I don't know how to fix that on steemit, she is not, in fact, holding on for dear life, but just climbing onto her handkerchief for fun while I was doing dishes.