Sophomore Cleo Lester reported Wednesday that emails she thought were spam were actually her CS 61A project partner trying to reach her.

“Well, this was mildly amusing,” Lester said upon first making the realization. “Huh.”

“I did think it was weird that a spambot would be this persistent,” she added. “But I only realized it was an actual classmate when I clicked on the link from his last email out of curiosity.”

The email, which was sent from a FireMail address, read “TIME IS RUNNING OUT! CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO GET STARTED!” The link had been simplified using a third party website and led to a Google Drive folder after a series of captchas.

“Honestly, we’re screwed now,” Lester said, adding that the project was due in a few days and the group had just scheduled their first meeting. “But I still somehow feel like I’ve been a part of some kind of big event.”

According to Lester, the “spam” started about February and continued being sent in increasingly high frequencies. “No matter how many accounts I blocked or how many filters I set up, the emails just kept coming. After maybe the fourth or fifth time I received ‘Struggling With CS? Find Out How to get HUNDREDS of FREE POINTS Here!’, I just gave up and started ignoring them.”

“I mean, who emails like that?” Lester said, in reference to an email containing only the words “This Link Could ~MAKE~ OR ~BREAK~ Your GPA!” and a stock image of a crying middle school student holding a report card. “In any other context, I’d just ignore emails like this, but knowing an actual human sat down and composed these is making them almost morbidly fascinating.”

“I wasn’t really sure which address to reply to,” Lester said, who ultimately decided to bulk email all 30 accounts that she had received spam from over the last few weeks. She reportedly received a response from “an entirely new address.” The group’s first meeting is set for tomorrow.

“I’m really looking forward to finding out how they talk in real life,” Lester said, who added that she was also looking forward to meeting the third project member.

“Maybe they’ll sound like a scam caller or something.”

As of press time, Lester reported that the professor had mistaken the group’s email asking for an extension request as malware.

This is a satirical article written purely for entertainment purposes.