three please!

I have some new little pets. Tiny pets, tiny and quiet and shell shocked. It all started when I told my boyfriend that I wanted to get a rescued rat from the Denver Dumb Friends League to explore training a rat and find out if one would really be good for some of the therapeutic work I want to do (phew, run on sentence). He suggested I think about mice instead. They are, he argued, smaller, cheaper and just as smart as rats, they are sort of "starter rats."
I thought about it...short life spans and according to my research as smart as rats, which are as smart as dogs which are pretty smart, but not as smart as pigs.
So, I made a dare. If I find a cage/acquarium at Goodwill for cheap, and if he agrees to clean the cage whenever it needs cleaning and mouse sit for me when I'm out of town, I will, with his assistance get a mouse. My boyfriend does not live with me, he's in the same neighborhood and lives just around the corner, an arrangement that I recommend (especially when it snows and he can easily dash over to shovel my sidewalk or when I go to school in Denver and he can come over and feed my little dog, Cowgirl).
Now, I have three mice living in the middle, tiny, room that didn't really have a purpose. They are set up in a large acquarium, on a table so they are up high and they are artistically arranged. We found them at a locally owned pet store in the feeder mouse bin.
They are here now. They do not smell. We have fed them all kinds of things: blueberries, lettuce, crackers, birdseed, cereal. I know, it's not a good thing.
I have let them run around on my lap on a towel.