Only a woman named "Bunny" could come up with this

I just saw Howard Huge. And just like the comic strip, it wasn’t even funny.

I knew as I ran down Old Farm Road that I had made a wrong turn into the Secret Lives of Wealthy Charlottesvillians. There were gardens here. And bunnies. And quaint cottage-mansions protected from the outside hooligans like me by enormous bush-fortresses.

As I trekked to the end of the road, obviously too caught up in whatever I was listening to to notice the blatant error with reality, I stopped at a miniature bridge leading to a clearing in the woods. Like any yuppie cottage-mansion dweller would dream of having in his backyard, I saw in the distance the glowing cursive-ish sign for Barnes and Noble. I’d really entered an alternate universe now, and no more than .5 miles away from my own modest bedroom.

I turned around, deciding I could get overpriced lattes and the Best of Emmylou Harris some other time (Barnes and Noble sells books, too? No way.) And that’s when I heard the loudest bark ever known to man.

God, I thought, that thing’s gonna kill me. And that was before I even saw it.

The sight shocked me about as much as a real-life version of Clifford the Big Red Dog. There was Howard Huge, a breed of dog that I had believed to be entirely fictional until today. I was worried he might chase me down/paw me to death, but I found that just like in the pathetically short wiki article for Howard Huge, he was “somewhat of a gentle giant.”

This all took place not too far from Wayside Place. Perhaps on my future runs, cows will populate my school, my teacher will have an ear on top of her head that hears thoughts, and I, Marissa, (actually Maurecia, but in fourth grade this seemed to be my first and only opportunity to almost share a name with a fictional character. In tenth grade my theory proved to be incorrect.) will be forced to read aloud the dictionary page with “Journey” on it after I accidentally ripped it out and felt terrible about it.