It was never supposed to enter our house in the first place.

About a year ago, Madame Queen ran a contest for a stuffed animal. Somewhere in the contest description it said that the stuffed animal was over two feet tall so I immediately knew I wanted nothing to do with anything. I said as much in the comments of the post and then promptly learned two very important lessons: 1) Madame Queen is entirely too nice. 2) You should never touch a contest post unless you are OK with winning a stuffed animal that is taller than Vern Troyer.

OF COURSE I won.

I begged Madame Queen to just not send the crazy thing, but she's not a very good listener when it comes to things that she doesn't want at her house either. It showed up on our doorstep.

It took me 0.000005 seconds to realize that objects that sound large on the internet are even larger in person. The thing is bigger than your average four-year old. It needed to get the heck out of our tiny townhouse, and quick. I loaded it into a bag and headed out to the car to make a run to Goodwill.

I was stopped in my tracks by Mr. Husband. Apparently he had an affinity for the crazy orange thing. He harassed and pleaded and argued until I finally rolled my eyes and took it back into the house.

I waited. I watched. No one paid any attention to the Too Big for Our House stuffed creature.

I let a few months go by and then decided I would only half get rid of it. I stuck it in a bag and tossed it into the garage, along with some other things that needed taken to Goodwill. Somehow, someway, the darn thing broke out of the bag, walked up two flights of stairs, and hid next to Mr. Husband's side of the bed.

Getting rid of the thing became a mission. Over and over I made it disappear. Over and over it reappeared. When we started preparing to move this summer, I even went so far as to shove the thing in with a box of trash. It still found its way to the new house.

The new house has more than enough space for obnoxious-sized stuffed animals, so I tossed it into the playroom. I was curious if a certain short person would play with it, so I made sure to place it in plain view.

She never once touched it. She didn't even glance at the thing.

So when it came time to load up the car to take toys to Stuff-a-Bus, I again started eying the giant stuffed animal. It really was in absolutely new condition as it had never once been the cause of a child's laughter. I waited patiently for sounds that indicated that all of the humans in the house were busy and then I quickly shoved the thing in a bag and drug it out to the car. Only, Mr. Husband had locked the doors to the SUV. My eyes darted to and fro. I fully expected someone to catch me sneaking it out, so I frantically shoved the bag under the vehicle.

The plan was for me to run out to Stuff-A-Bus by myself.

The best laid plans always fail.

As my departure time neared, it became clear that Alexis was in A Mood. A Very, Very Bad Mood. She was in the kind of mood that dictates that I bear the brunt of her terroristic ways if I want to be able to return to a house rather than a pile of ashes and smoke. There was absolutely no way I could leave her with Mr. Husband. As I drug the miserable kid to the car, I knew I was about to get my face ripped off.

I was right.

The second Alexis spotted it shoved under the vehicle, she started bawling.

"My bunnnnnnnyyyyyy. I want my bunnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyy. The kids can't have my bunnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyy. I want my bunnnnnnnnnyyyyyyy."

On and on. For a full half hour, the kid acted like I was tossing her favorite toy into a vat of acid and then smashing its remains with a sledgehammer. Her favorite toy that she had never played with.

The only way to get the kid to quit with the Category 10.5 meltdown was to promise that the bunny would go back home with us. When we pulled into the Stuff-a-Bus parking area, Alexis watched carefully to make sure I kept my word. The stuffed animal went into the front seat.

I was ticked. I REALLY wanted to get rid of the thing.

As we made the trek back to our house, I started plotting the stuffed animal's future. I figured Alexis would at least require that I return it to her playroom, so I would have to wait for another day to kill it.

(Yes, kill it. I'm no longer happy with getting rid of it. Now I want it dead. Well, as dead as an inanimate object can be, anyway.)

I'm cute when I'm crazy, and I was very crazy to think that Alexis would even care what I did with my enemy. Alexis ran into the house without so much as a glance to see if I would haul the thing into the house. I stood in the driveway glaring at it before finally dragging it inside and throwing it into the storage room in our basement.

Two days later, Alexis has not asked for it. Not even once.

I'm torn between giving the thing a bath in bacon grease and leaving it on the floor for the dogs, or saving it so that Alexis can have a date for prom.

I hate that damn thing.