My Junior year of college was full of many firsts- first time living in an apartment, first time living off campus, first time taking college level Spanish. I was living the typical college student life - stressed out, eating McDonalds because I had no time to cook, panicking over the fact that I was panicking, and dearly missing my dog.

On one of those days, I was stressing out over stressing out and eating a snack wrap when I received a phone call from my sister, who, at the time, attended the same college as I did. Her tone of voice sounded suspicious. I could tell she was hiding something as she told me " Can I come over? I have something to show you." Immediately intrigued, I demanded to know whatever it was she needed to show me. Why bother coming to my apartment when she could just tell me over the phone? I began playing the guessing game of 20 questions. I suspected a tattoo but why she would sound so sucpicous about a tattoo didn't make sense. She told me I wasn't suppose to tell anyone. Without an answer, She informed me she would be over in 5 minutes and then hung up on me as I was still demanding to know this secret.

The next five minutes felt like the longest ever. Antsy, I stormed over to my next door neighbors apartment and blurted out the whole story. So there we sat on her couch pondering what the secret could be. When my sister texted me that she was out front, I bolted out the door and down the steps. As I came up on the passenger side window of her car, my jaw dropped as I saw the head of a puppy golden retriever pop up from the seat. First there was excitement as I called up to my neighbor to come downstairs and see the puppy. I asked her who's it was, and I knew instantly that we were in trouble. The puppy was ours. My sister bought a puppy and was hiding it from our parents for the last four days.

I was stunned. Apparently, buying him was on a whim like she was buying an over priced purse. But this wasn't an over priced purse. This was a living, breathing puppy. Thoughts turned negative as I blurted out " What are you gonna tell mom and dad." With no plan, my sister had a guilty look on her face and just said " but look how cute he is." From that moment forward, I was put on puppy duty as my sister went to class. We took him to the academic quad. Okay, we carried him to the academic quad because he refused to walk on the leash. For a few hours, the stress of telling my parents was put on hold.

When I returned him to my sister, she told me the plan. She was going to bring the puppy home on Halloween, dressed up in a halloween sweater. Like a halloween sweater was going to make things better. I braced myself. On Halloween, I went home just to watch the fireworks. I arrived before my sister and so I sat back and waited. I saw my sister's blue ford focus roll into the driveway and decided it was going to be an interesting day.

She walked into the house with her nervous laugh and told my mom to look outside in her car. My mom instantly thought she damaged her focus, but once she peered out the window she said " What is that in your car? Is that an animal?" Ashley smiled guiltily and nodded yes. She then proceeded to go get the puppy, whose name was now Harley. Dumbfounded, all my mom said was wait until your dad gets home.

That was a very bad sign. In the meantime, we introduced Harley to the other dogs and let him explore the yard. When my dad got home, my mom told him to look at the deck. Like my mom's reaction, he instantly had a worried look on his face like something was broken. Peering out the window, he saw the golden retriever laying on the deck, shook his head, said omg, and asked who brought home a puppy.

In the end, Harley became a permanent part of our family, and I can't imagine life without him; however, I don't recommend hiding a dog from your parents.