I've Got Mad Love: Wacky Hook-Up Hijinks

The last portion of I've Got Mad Love ended with our heroes going their separate ways after the Biology poster presentation. One hero didn't know the other hero's name.

Luckily, the other hero knew the boy's name.

As Caleb walked home from BYU campus, he was upset with himself for not asking me on a date. He plotted several ways to try and contact me. We had shared a Biology TA who sent out weekly emails, so Caleb thought he might email all 60 students the same message. Something along the lines of:

"Hey,

My name is Caleb Flanagan and I talked to a really cool girl during the poster presentation. I meant to ask her name so I could ask her on a date, but I didn't. If this was you, email me back and we can get together."

He figured that the worst that could happen would be that no one answered, or that maybe even a different girl would respond; at least he could get a date with someone out of it. Because it should be said that Caleb's last five attempts at asking girls on dates were cruelly rejected.

But what he had forgotten was that he had deleted all of the TA's emails due to it being the end of the semester. Plan A—impossible.

Plan B was to email his poster presentation group members to see if they had the TA's emails still. He was satisfied with this idea and went downstairs to get a glass of Kool-Aid before he got down to business.

By the time he got back to his room, there was a new email from a girl named Holly. The body of the email said:

"Is this the Caleb who likes to fail Biology?"

I don't want to brag, but I know how to start a conversation. The callback to our previous conversation (it was not Caleb's first time taking that Biology course), the hypothetical question, the opportunity for him to send a short, no-pressure response—I am awesome. I had looked him up on the BYU student directory because I had really enjoyed his company; I figured that hanging out with him again could be fun.

Caleb saw the email and wigged out. Here he had been fretting over how he was going to contact me, and I had gotten to him first. How like life. He sent this response:

"I believe that I am that Caleb who loves to fail Biology. I was looking for your email address. What can I do for you?

Caleb Flanagan
'You can quit if you want to, but just remember, quitting is a hard habit to break.' -Jonathan Kent"

Yes, he did have a Smallville quote in his email signature. I laughed when I read it, but I will admit that I was puzzled by his curt response. What could "What can I do for you" mean? That was what my mom would pointedly say to us kids when we woke her up at night growing up; to me, that response was almost another way of saying "Why are you bothering me?"

So, I panicked. And then I told a lie that would not be revealed as such until after we had already gotten married.