OK, no one is going to care about this, but something happened at last week’s The Midnight concert that had me S H O O K. Before I further explain, there is some required reading to prep you (“you” as if anyone is reading this) for THE SHOCKING STORY I’m about to tell. The tale starts in 2019 and involves Chooch and I LOVINGLY HARANGUING JANNA, as we were born to do.

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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 JANNA 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.

That fall, Henry, Chooch and I went to 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.

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FLASH FORWARD TO 2023

OK, got that? You marinating in those juicy, wet fact-globules?

Now picture this: I’m sitting at home, chained to my computer, doing Law Firm stuff (remember when Chooch thought I was a stock broker, though?) when Chooch texts me from work. It’s a picture of someone’s Chipotle order, and I’m like, “What am I looking at, the fact that this bro is a meat-psycho, or what?”

And then I see the name.

Mmm, no way. I’m sure Fleece Radkins isn’t that uncommon so probably just a funny coincidence. But then I remembered that there is an ACE event at Kennywood this weekend, so MAYBE he was in town for that? I mean, odd to come in so many days in advance considering this is PITTSBURGH, but who am I to judge.

“Send me his picture, I forget what he looks like,” Chooch texted, just on the off chance that this was the same guy. Because my blog goes down EVERYDAY NOW, this was of course one of those times so I couldn’t search my blog for his picture and instead had to google his name plus the name of the guy whose YouTube videos he sometimes has cameo appearances in.

In doing so, I saw that the second result was a LinkedIn page for a guy with the same name, his profile picture was definitely the same guy, and it said PITTSBURGH, PA??

My heart started racing (LOL why tho) and sent it to Chooch who replied: lol should i say something to him

UM YES PLZ LOL.

Anyway, Chooch finally texted me back a few minutes later and said it was definitely him, they talked, it was awkward. “I’ll tell you later, I have to go back to work,” he said, leaving me hanging for approx. 4 hours. Meanwhile, I was frantically trying to tell Carrie and Nate this over Jabber at work, knowing they would be the only ones who would care. I did NOT know what to do with this useless information!!

By the time Chooch came home from work and I accosted him for the 411, he had already half-moved on with his life and didn’t know what I was asking him at first?? How was this story not just PERCHED on the tip of his tongue, ready to roll the moment he walked through the door??

“Oh, that,” he laughed, “Yeah, it was really awkward.”

And here’s why: BECAUSE CHOOCH MADE IT THAT WAY.

First of all, instead of being straightforward and saying, “Hey, aren’t you in some of Flint Yesvak’s coaster videos?” he instead decided to play a weird psychological game by pretending that he looked familiar but wasn’t SURE HOW.

So of course, Fleece is probably on guard. I know any time someone says, “Hey, do I know you from somewhere?” to me, hundreds of “wrong place/wrong time” scenarios whiz through my mind like a Rolodex of Ill Repute.

“Is this a hitchhiker I picked up in 1999?”

“Is this one of the moms from Chooch’s first (Catholic LOLOLOL) school where I was publicly shunned for being the MEAN GIRL who was blogging about all of the douchey parents??”

“Is this one of the people I met on WEBTV and invited to my house when I was going through an ‘Interviewing for New Friends’ phase???”

You see what I mean.

“I think I saw you in a video,” Chooch ended up saying to Fleece, like it JUST CAME TO HIM.

He said Fleece very cautiously asked, “What….kind…of video?”

“Oh, I think…coasters maybe,” Chooch said, still toying with him. I’m so glad I didn’t witness this. I was actually squealing in embarrassment just listening to his replay of the interrogation.

From there, Fleece deduced where Chooch had seen him which was good because Chooch legitmately couldn’t remember the name of the Fleece’s friend’s channel. Not having anything else to say, they exchanged “Nice to meet you”s and then Fleece took his burrito and left. Watch him never come back to that Chipotle.

“Didn’t you see the screenshot of his LinkedIn that I sent you? He went to school for Computer Science – you could have talked to him about that!” I cried.

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO LEAD INTO THAT??” Chooch asked incredulously. “‘Excuse me, but when I was perusing your LinkedIn page while waiting for you to come in, I noticed that you went to school for Computer Science’???”

Chooch also said that it was funny because when he first got the order, all he saw was the “Fleece R” and that the full name doesn’t come up until you print it, I guess? He said he immediately thought to himself, “Fleece Radkins lol.” AND THEN HE SAW THE FULL NAME AND WAS LIKE, “………….nah.” What a small fucking world.

But yeah, now that we know he lives in Pittsburgh, Janna has much better chances of marrying him! I’m so excited for her!!

(As I was telling this to story to people, it was kind of alarming to me to realize how many times I start off by saying, “OK remember that one person I was obsessed with from [insert CVS, MY NEIGHBORHOOD, THE PARKING LOT OUTSIDE OF A RESTAURANT, THE TROLLEY, OBSCURE BAND, NICHE YOUTUBE CHANNEL, AMISH CHEESE SHOP]???”)

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OK now we are back to 2026 (JFC I almost put 2024 and then 2025, could not remember the year, awesome) and you know all about us shipping Janna with the inimitable FLEECE RADKINS. But what I didn’t mention back then is that we had a BACKUP SHIP for Janna. There is another coaster YouTuber we love (he’s the best one, honestly) and he has friends from all over who make appearances in his vlogs depending on which park he’s visiting. He calls himself and his friends the Coaster Idiots and most of them do not have their own YouTube channels but have become “known” in the coaster scene (yes, I realize how weird this is the more words that I type, life is so unserious sometimes) and TWO OF THEM WERE ACTUALLY ON THE COASTER CREW TRIP WE WENT ON IN 2023!! Chooch and I chatted with one of them several times and because Insta friends with him afterward and I’m still so happy about that because he is one of my favorite coaster idiots.

Anyway!!! There is one Coaster Idiot who is jokingly referred to as Uncle Nate. He usually is wearing a trucker hat and big mirrored sunglasses and gives off an ironic predator vibe. Well, at least in the past – he seems to have toned down that character lately and is just “himself” now. Chooch and I were pushing Uncle Nate on Janna at one point and she was not happy about it because of his sleazy persona.

Truly though he is so funny and I’m always happy when he pops up in a Coaster Idiots video.

The guy who runs that channel is from NJ and I’m pretty sure he has mentioned that Uncle Nate lives somewhere in rural PA and that his home park is hilariously Conneaut Lake Park (which I believe is closed now after all kind of scandals and fires, it was its own untelevised soap opera). This is about an hour or so outside of Pittsburgh, so when Henry and I were standing in line waiting for doors to open at the Roxian last week and a familiar looking guy walked past us toward the end of the line, it wasn’t THAT far-fetched to believe that it was Uncle Nate, but also, WAS THAT UNCLE NATE?? Henry and I both looked at each other at the same time, like, “You saw that, right? Was that—-?”

“I really think it was him,” Henry said, and then creepily commented on his leg tattoos. I’m sorry Henry, but I’m not typically studying Uncle Nate’s legs when I’m watching those videos?!

I texted Chooch immediately, like, “I think Uncle Nate is at this concert?!” and his response was, “Who?” I swear to god, that kid moved to Philly and immediately his brain became a sieve for all Pgh-related memories.

Once we were inside the venue and eventually found our “forever spot” (I hate the Rosina, truly, there is no good place to stand in that fucking place), HE WALKED PAST US!?

There is he along with the tattoos that Henry has apparently saved to memory.

I was seriously going to say something but then the show started. I was standing RIGHT BEHIND HIM for the entire thing. I was going to wait until after the show to hopefully-not-creepily ask, “Hey, you’re not UNCLE NATE the COASTER IDIOT are you?” but then!! He almost got in a fight with the super tall and super drunk and super annoying bro next to us, whose gf was also super tall and super drunk and super annoying and kept bumping into Uncle Nate, who was getting visibly ruffled. Then she kept STROKING UNCLE NATE’S ARM while apologizing!? I could kind of read his lips and it sounded like he said something about having a new tattoo under his sleeve that she kept flailing into. He did NOT look like he was accepting her apology and then a few minutes later when she tripped up against the back of him, he stiffened and shook his head.

So then her annoying bro bf (who HAD HIS SUNGLASSES ON FOR THE WHOLE SHOW, WOW SO COOL) leaned across me because he was apparently about to start to a fight with Uncle Nate but his gf stepped in and slurred, “No, don’t start, please!” So it never escalated from there but poor Uncle Nate’s night was tarnished because of that. They were annoying me too—the gf hit me in the face at one point when she was drunkenly flailing her arms about in some weird jellyfish dance, but then they eventually left for more drinks (I imagine) and their vacated spot was taken by another couple who were cool and normal.

When the show ended, Nate and his gf (wife? sorry Janna) split with a quickness so I never did get to say anything. Besides, I was sweating my ass off and my throat hurt from screaming and singing (well, yelling words, I can’t sing) and approaching a stranger was the last thing I wanted to do at that point.

However, we are probably in their picture because as we were waiting to cross the street in front of the Roxian, he and his gf were already on the other side of the road taking a picture of the venue and marquee. I’ll have no way of knowing because he’s not on Instagram! (I know this because he’s always the only Coaster Idiot not tagged, duh.)

I just thought that this was so funny, that Chooch and I jokingly chose two random coaster channel side characters to ship Janna with (from two different channels, too!) and somehow I have seen both of them out in the wild. Chooch’s second Fleece Radkins encounter still takes the cake, though!

It’s times like this when I wish we still worked in the office because I was dying to talk about this all week! Well, there’s always therapy this week, get ready Julia, lol.

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