... And so I called her. I finally got up the courage, cleared my throat two or three times, wrote down what I was going to say, and dialed the number.

The pay phone I used was positioned next to the traffic jam-hosting highway. The phone was filthy and wet with a loose cord that I had to hold into the phone as I tried to conduct the call. The pay phone obstacles simply highlighted the urgency and the romance of the situation. I had finally found my deeply hidden guts.

Against my own valiant bravery I decided not to let this moment and this frame of mind collapse. Right when I heard the sweet, gentle voice of my beautiful goddess answer the telephone, I jumped at the splendid opportunity.

"It's me," I said. "I've spent a while thinking about this. I even wrote down what I was going to say," I continued while harshly crumbling the paper into the phone for a dramatic effect. "But the truth is, I love you. I have since the day I met you and I always will. I know I've been a jerk, but ever since we broke up I could think of nothing else but you. Let's give this relationship a chance ... (long pause) ... Please?"

"Nick?" she answered with a much higher pitched and confused tone than I was accustomed to hearing. I could only picture her head jerking back and her eyebrows violently narrowing forward as she stared into the receiver with an exaggerated snarl. With the response "Nick?"- the name of her recently separated father - I realized that I had been talking to her mother. c