King’s Dominion: Henry Rides Alone & Janna’s Future Husband

HENRY RIDES ALONE

Being a family of three makes going to amusement parks kind of annoying because someone always has to ride alone (lol usually Henry, come on now). Usually, we try to arrange it so that we’re at least all riding at the same time, which involves basic math and sometimes social skills when you have to ask the people behind you if they want to go ahead so that you can match the riders with whatever line your other party is in. Such a hassle!

However, we counted incorrectly when in line for Grizzly and Henry ended up going on the train after us and was surly about it because, for some reason, the line for this was SO SLOW. Operations were awful, one of the ride attendants was wearing an eye patch and we thought it was for Halloween but Henry said he saw him take it off and his eye was all fucked up, so that’s cool.

People were bailing the whole time we stood in line for this, but we were committed because Henry expressed interest in riding it and he NEVER suggests deviations from my airtight amusement park agendas.

Agendae?

Agendi?

Agendas.

Also, some asshole kid behind me had NO concept of boundaries and his parents certainly didn’t care to teach him, so he kept jabbing me in the back with his faux-hawk so when it was our turn to ride, we waved smugly at Henry as our train departed the station and then I don’t remember a single thing about the ride because my little dickhead son pretended as though my phone fell out of his pocket and I didn’t know he was joking until the end of the ride so I spent the whole duration screaming ARE YOU SERIOUS until I eventually burst into tears.

Anyway, I think this ride awakened something inside Henry because, after that, he didn’t try to ride anything with us anymore – he just went and sat where ever he found an empty seat instead of trying to line up with whatever seat we were in line for.

Henry’s Journey To Independence.

Here’s our favorite manservant standing alone to ride Racer 75. He had some kind of camaraderie with the guys behind him and wouldn’t tell Chooch and me what was going on which I thought was rude and I hate it when Henry has interactions with people that don’t involve me. I monitor him pretty tightly and I need to know these things so that I can someday in the future twist them around into some accusatory pretzel of paranoia.

By the next day, he was fully emancipated from Chooch and me and rode Twisted Timbers once in a seat that we didn’t want him to sit in and then again on a train that we weren’t even on! HERE HE IS WITH HIS NEW FAMILY.

(Side note: the guy in front of him was the sweetest! He was talking to us when we waited for the  gates to open Sunday morning and has gotten Chooch all gung-ho about Planet Coaster, but true to dude-form, he was subtly condescending when we were talking about the new ride at Hershey and I said, “It’s called Candymonium” and he said, “Yeah…I’m not sure what it’s called” because I’m a GIRL and like most places in life outside of Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood, THERE IS LITTLE ROOM FOR BROADS IN THE COASTER COMMUNITY but that’s OK I’ll just surf my way out on a wave of testosterone.

Later, we rode Intimidator and Henry was like, “Deuces, you losers” as his train pulled out of the station while we were still in line for front row (the back is arguably the best row but you gotta sit in the front too at least once for the experience), leaving Chooch and me gaping in his wake. We were still in line when he got off the ride and he actually walked all the way around and got back into line, and even RAN when he realized that he could snag the seat behind Chooch and me right as the train was loading! HENRY IS BECOMING…SOMEONE WHO GETS EXCITED!

JANNA’S FUTURE HUSBAND

OK how to even start this story. Well, I guess it starts the same way they all do: I became obsessed with this one YouTube channel that features a group of guys who go to amusement parks and carnivals and vlog about it, but sometimes, the friend of one of the guys shows up and for some reason, I have really taken to him.

In an effort to keep my blog out of search engines, let’s just call him Fleece Radkins.

Now, Fleece sometimes shows up in the vlogs of his friend, Flint Yesvac. Their home parks are King’s Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and actually, one of the Busch Gardens vlogs was the first time I saw Fleece. I liked him because after every ride, he would stoically and confidently state, “That’s my favorite ride in the park.”

So then Janna was visiting one time and Chooch was like “JANNA WATCH ME PLAY FORTNITE CAN I HAVE YOUR GAMING COMPUTER” and I was like, “JANNA CHOOSE AN NCT127 BIAS AND WATCH THESE ROLLER COASTER VIDEOS!” so I showed her one of the vlogs that featured Fleece and yelled, “ISN’T HE FUNNY” and she was like, “I guess?” and I was like, “OMG JANNA LIKES FLEECE!”

And then Chooch abandoned Fortnight in an effort to help me harangue Janna mercilessly like any other Saturday night in Hell House and we decided that we needed to hook them up.

So the first step, naturally, was to find him on Instagram. I did, but his profile is private and he doesn’t have a lot of friends so I didn’t want to request him.

“I feel like he’s much too young, though!” Janna pointed out, which means that she was at least considering it.

Anyway, on our first day at King’s Dominion, we were walking to Grizzly when Henry casually asked, “Hey, wasn’t that one of the guys in those videos you watch?” and I was like, “Huh? Who? Where? Why?” because I am the most unalert when it comes to other people while I’m walking. I mostly keep my eyes on the ground so that I don’t trip.

However, when I turned around to look, even from the back and with eyes as jacked as mine (and I do not mean jacked as in muscular, my eyes are basically saggy orbs that are close to serving as just facial decoration) I recognized one of the passersby as FLEECE RADKINS.

“Holy shit!” I screeched to Chooch, and we were frozen, watching him walk away with his group of friends.

“Was it really him?” Chooch asked, and there was only one way to find out: CHASE HIM SUPER STEALTHILY AND STARE AT HIS FACE FROM CLOSE RANGE.

We caught up with him just as he walked up to the Wayside Grill, so I stood right next to him and said, “HMMM, LOOKING AT THE MENU” while,  you know, looking at the menu. Then Fleece walked away and sat down on a wall while his friends stayed in line, and at that point, I was 99.9% confident that it was him so I made Chooch pose for a fake picture.

FLEECE RADKINS, ladies and gentlemen!

I sent the picture to Janna.

She was a bit less enthused than I expected her to be. I guess I wanted her to be upset that she wasn’t there but she seemed pretty flippant about it, what a bitch!

YOU GUYS, TWO HOURS LATER, WE SAW HIM AGAIN IN THE SAME SPOT!!

Henry didn’t know that Fleece was behind him, so Chooch ran up to Henry and whisper-screamed, “DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU BUT FLEECE RADKINS IS RIGHT THERE” and I was standing behind Fleece close enough to see that Fleece’s eyes were honed in right on Chooch and he totally had to have known that he was the subject of their DON’T TURN AROUND conversation.

I never did approach the guy because he’s not even a part of that YouTube channel, he’s just kind of like an occasional tag-alonger so I would have felt uncomfortable being like, “HEY I HAVE SEEN YOU IN THREE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE AND I HAVE CLEARLY WATCHED THOSE THREE VIDEOS ENOUGH TIMES FOR EVEN MY BOYFRIEND WHO ONLY HALF-WATCHES THE VIDEOS TO RECOGNIZE YOU CAN I GET A SELFIE?”

Yeah, no thanks.

Back at work (a/k/a The Place Without Roller Coasters), Glenn thought this was such a great story that he made me tell it in our weekly meeting and absolutely no one was shocked that I was stalking some guy that I kind of know from 3 YouTube videos. So, your typical Tuesday meeting.