Rob and Paul were two regular hamsters. Rob, with intense brown eyes, outlined in a different shade, was gold-toned. Paul was a medium brown, a few shades darker than Rob. They were the only two hamsters in a cage marked mice. Adam and Kyle were two albino mice, white with pink eyes. They looked the same, except Kyle was considerably smaller, (just a little guy). And Pookie was a black pleco fish. For those of you who don't know, a pleco is shaped like an arrow-head, attaches itself to the side of fish tanks, and eat algae. Plecos are loners.

I had to stop at Kroger's (the grocery store) on the way home from the pet store, so I had to leave my new matchbox twenty pets in the car. When I came back, I piled all my groceries in the trunk and opened the driver's side door. There, sitting on the passenger's seat, was Paul. Out of his box. He'd chewed his way out, the little escape artist!

The matchsticks pets and I went home. The new pets surprised my roommates. The names, however, did not surprise them. After all, I had already named our two cats Mulder and Scully and my teddy bear hamster Krycek (after another X-Files character).

Rob and Paul went to live with Krycek. Krycek is a little on the rough side, but he'd been living all alone for a while, since Ghosty died, (my roommate's hamster). Adam and Kyle moved into their own critter keeper, and Pookie joined the other fish of the household.

We discovered almost immediately that both Adam and Kyle were female. But Kyle wasn't doing so well. She was so tiny and seemed shocked from the move. She died her first night in the apartment. The pet store gave us another mouse. Since Kyle belonged to my roommate, (as did Paul), she got the new mouse. She named him Jacque…

Yes, him.

We soon learned that both Rob and Paul were also female. They both became pregnant, soon after Pookie the Pleco died. I discovered this when one of my roommates and I moved out of the apartment and temporarily into her parents' house. While we were moving, Rob and Paul stayed with Krycek at the house. Paul had her babies there. She had about eight or ten of them, but only three are alive today. My roommate named them when they started growing hair: Mo, Larry, and Curly.

We moved Krycek, Paul and their babies into our new duplex, and we were going to wait until Rob had her babies until we moved her. But Rob had complications in her pregnancy, and she died at my roommate's parents' house.

Not long after Paul's babies grew to be almost her size, Adam started getting big. Paul no longer needed to be with her babies. We thought all her babies were boys, so we moved Paul into the mouse house. Adam had her babies, eight of them, and Paul helped raise them. She spent more time with the babies than Adam did. We lost our heat for a few weeks, and Paul would sit on the baby mice and keep them warm. They used to follow her around more than they followed their mother.

Then we found babies in the hamster cage and discovered that Mo was a girl. Paul became a grandmother. We kept Mo and her babies with the boys and removed Krycek, because we didn't know if he'd be rough with the babies.

One day, Krycek chewed his way out of his cage, (he was the original escape artist, before we ever got Paul). We found him wandering down the hall one evening. We had to put him back with his sons, Larry and Curly, but we didn't want him in there with Mo. We figured that Mo and her babies would do well with Adam, Jacque, and the now six baby mice, like Paul had. Big mistake. Paul attacked one of her grandchildren, and the baby ultimately died. We also lost a baby mouse sometime during the whole thing, but we don't know when or who got the baby mouse.

What Paul did can be explained by looking at the behaviour of wolves. When the alpha female has pups, she kills the pups of any of the other females. A pack can only raise one set of babies at a time. The other females then help raise the alpha's pups. Paul was working on instinct, considering Mo's babies, her grandchildren, as a threat to Adam's children. There's a possibility that Paul thinks Adam's babies are her own.

We shuffled the pets around, to where they are today. Paul lives in a gray hanging files box with no lid in my roommate's room. Krycek lives in a glass aquarium with his and Paul's sons, Larry, and Curly. Mo and her three living babies, (yet to be named), live in their own glass aquarium. Jacque lives with his and Adam's boy baby, Swift, (whom my roommate named). And Adam lives with her four daughters, Tabitha, Kody, Caroline, and Joan, (whom I named). Tabitha is named after the pre-MB20 band, Tabitha's Secret. Kody is, of course, named after song nine of the Yourself or Someone Like You album. Caroline is named after a woman mentioned in the lyrics of the song "Unkind" from the Tabitha's Secret album Don't Play With Matches. And Joan is named after a song from the same album, "Dear Joan".

Naming your pets after the matchsticks is tough. When Kyle died that first night, I was so upset and crying. But I can't imagine that I'd be any less upset if I had named her Pink Nose or something. What's strange is when all your matchstick pets turn out to be female, (though I'm still not sure if Pookie was a boy or a girl). It's tough to start calling them "she" when you've been saying "he".

Having this many pets is a great responsibility, and our duplex really does smell sometimes. Not only do we have the fish, hamsters, and mice, but we also have a bird and two cats. But we prefer our zoo to a pristine, boring house any day.

Of course, I'm going to recommend that everybody run out and start their own matchstick menagerie. But, before you do, be sure that you're ready for five new pets. Also, I suggest that you know the gender of your pets before you buy them. Otherwise, you end up with five cages, like I have. Are you prepared to clean all that? If not, are you prepared to smell all that?