Note : I LOVE THAT SHOW. How I Met Your Mother. I have that stupid but catchy song, "Let's Go to the Mall" stuck in my head, by 'Robin Sparkles', aka Robin Scherbatsky. She's just a character from the show, but still. The song is the stupidest song I've ever heard in my life but so catchy. ANYWAY.

How I Met Your Mother

Casey, Present Day

Dad never actually told me how he met my mom.

I mean, sure, I knew a couple things about my parents' past. Like, for example, Candi was some sort of high school wild-child and my dad was this drama-star that everyone swooned over. But I honestly have no idea how they ever ended up together.

It's like my mom is hot and my dad is cold; they're complete opposites but yet they somehow got married. We had some pictures of dad in some old plays and musicals as a teenager. And photos of mom posing in her '80s clothes with her friends. But never any photos of them together as teenagers. The only photos we could find of both my mother and father in the same picture were photos after their wedding.

So one day Heather and I decided to get to the bottom of it.

"I bet mom was like, a crazy-obsessive fan girl for dad," I said. "You know how she acts around 'celebrities', and dad was practically the high school star."

"I highly doubt mom was that ridiculous," she sniffed. "I bet dad was swooning for her."

"Both of you are wrong," a voice sounded from behind us. "And I hated your mother when we were young."

Both Heather and I whip around and gawk at our dad standing there. "You heard us?"

"You bet I did." He gestured for the sofa. "Why don't you guys sit down?"

We did, still gawking and feeling extremely awkward. "We didn't mean—" I began, not wanting to come off as trying to invade his privacy.

He shook his head and smiled. Then he sat down on the couch across from us and said, "This is how I met your mother."

Warren, 1987

I was thirteen years old when I first met Candi Harris. And let's just say I wasn't her biggest fan.

Being one of my drama teachers' favorite actors, I was allowed to watch the auditions for the schools music, Guys and Dolls Jr., and when Candi came walking out onto the stage with the typical '80s teenage-girl swagger, I knew from the start I would not get along with her.

I did not want her to be in the musical. One bit.

So after she was done with her horrendously botched audition, I turned to Miss Walsh, the drama teacher, and said, "No. She can't be on the play!"

But being a redhead, Miss Walsh had a special soft-spot for redheads.

And so Candi Harris was now part of the Guys and Dolls Jr. production.

And I was supposed to be the lead male, so it made everything just double awkward.

I hated everything about Candi. Sure, she was good-looking, but she ruined a potentially pretty face by topping it with mounds of candy-colored makeup. It was the '80s, so the beehive style was super popular for girls. Candi was never one to disinclude herself from a trend, and in high school, when flared jeans went out and baggy-skinny jeans came in. By the time she was 16, she went from '80s-trendy to Cyndi-Lauper-esque grunge.

That was around the time I started getting interested in her. Intrigued.

I never planned on talking to her until one day in class, Johnny Pratt, the most stuck-up, stick-up-his-butt student in the whole grade, approached me before the bell rang.

Stiffly, he said, "Candi wants you to meet her by the gym after school."

I blinked at him and the gaggle of girls who I'd been talking to (for acting purposes, I promise) started giggling hysterically.

"What's so funny?" I asked when Johnny walked back to his seat. "Why is that funny?"

"Uh, everyone in the world knows how Candi has been crushing on you since junior high." Said Clementine, a friend of mine.

Another girl, who I didn't even know the name of, said, "Wow, Warren. You sure have the looks, but you don't have any brains."

All of the girls seemed to think that was funny, and I was determined to meet up with Candi at the gym and get it through her head that no matter how much her ratty black clothes and hairspray-messy-hair was entertaining to the eye, I did not like her.

However, when I did finally approach her after class with much debate, I didn't even have a chance to get a word in because she belted out:

"Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell
But come, young waverer, come go with me;
In one respect I'll thy assistant be—"

Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet! She had memorized lines from Shakespeare to recite to me. Everyone knew I loved Shakespeare. And it's not a surprise that every girl would know I actually loved Romeo and Juliet.

I opened my mouth and finished off the rest,

"For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households rancor to pure love."

Candi's jaw was dropped, and suddenly I noticed how clear and brown her eyes were and how her red hair was actually attractive, and that even though I've been asked out many times, not one girl has ever memorized lines for me. Especially someone like Candi, who acted like she was above it all.

Candi had something inside her.

We started going out, and I fell in love, and we eventually got married at an extraordinarily young age. After all, it was the '90s.

Casey, Present Day

"Of course," Warren finished off, "I divorced her eventually. But those were for their own separate reasons. It doesn't change the fact that I did fall in love with her once."

Heather's eyes were all big and glassy. "That is SO romantic!" she swooned. "I never knew Mom was so cool!"

I smacked my forehead. Mom had sounded like a total idiot. Well, except for memorizing the lines and reading them to dad.

I said, "If I recited lines from Romeo and Juliet for Sammy, she's punch me."

Dad laughed, and Heather looked pissed at first that I had mentioned Sammy. But then her lips sort of twitched. Then she smirked. "I'd like to see that."

I rolled my eyes. Dad shook his head and got up. "Now that you know how I met your mother, why don't you guys go do your homework or something?" He left the room.

I was left staring at Heather for a couple minutes. She stared back.

"She read him romantic lines from Shakespeare," I said.

Heather smirked. "I know."

"He said he had a 'gaggle' of girls around him."

"I know." Her smirk widened.

I sort of grinned. "He said she was like Cyndi Lauper."

"I know!" she was grinning too, now.

Then we both just cracked up, and I don't think we ever stopped laughing that whole afternoon.

Note: I'm thinking on occasionally adding more chapters describing the 'How I Met Your Mother' story for OTHER character. Like Sammy, maybe. Billy. I dunno. We'll see. So what did you think of Casey's story?