- Stories.
- Since the dawn of time,
we've relied on stories to entertain and enlighten.
- Be they tales of adventure, love, loss,
or abject stupidity,
these sagas are passed down through generations...
a grand catalog of our collective experience.
- But what about those epic stories
only shared among a small circle of friends?
How do they achieve the legendary status
they so richly deserve?
- By being told here.
- Welcome to the ultimate chronicle of humanity.
- This is "True Story with Ed & Randall."
[dramatic music]
Good evening and welcome to "True Story,"
the show that brings stories to life
before your eyes and ours. - That's right.
We know nothing about the story we're about to hear.
Nada. But at least we know
our storyteller's name. Hello, Will.
- Thanks, guys. Thanks so much for having me.
- So just before we start the story,
can you just tell us in this story,
are you the hero or are you the villain?
- Uh, neutral? Neither?
Yeah, hero? Yeah, hero, sure.
- Great, okay. A hero story.
- Sure, yeah. - So where does this
take place and when?
- This takes place about two years ago.
It all began when I was sitting at my desk,
my cubicle at work pretending to work and checking my email.
- Yeah. - And--
- Wait-- hold on a second.
What-- what is this job?
What is it that you do?
- I work in city government.
- What's the city? - The city of Mesa, Arizona.
So I work in the economic development department.
There's a lot of looking at planning and zoning documents
and maps and Excel spreadsheets.
So you know, very, uh, boring.
Literally anything else would be exciting.
[light music]
* *
[phone rings]
- Will Novak, Mesa, Arizona city government.
How may I help you? - Hey there.
Looking for adventure, excitement?
Wanna just get away? - Really?
- With time shares starting at just 19 payments of $217...
- Does this office have kind of a "Parks and Rec" vibe or?
- A little bit. That show is very,
like, upsettingly true.
- Upsettingly true.
- Hey, what are you up to?
- I don't want to toot my own horn,
but I'll be sleeping in my cubicle all weekend
because my wife kicked me out.
How about you? Any exciting plans?
- [scoffs] I wish.
Nope, gonna be a-- kind of a quiet weekend.
You know, as usual.
I could use some excitement in my life.
Hey, you want to hang out?
- But I was--it was towards the end of my day at work.
And so before I leave, I always check
both my work email and my personal email.
- Yeah. - And I opened up
my personal email, and I see this email and it says,
"Urgent, reply right away-- Angelo's bachelor party."
So I clicked the button and I get ready to hit delete,
and I say, oh, well, maybe I should open it.
[rock music plays]
- Whoa. Reply, reply, reply, my dudes.
I have the sacred honor
of organizing Angelo's bachelor party.
And you, my dude, are invited.
- And immediately I thought, well, this is a spam email.
- Spam. - This is, you know,
Nigerian prince, they want money.
- You don't know anyone named Angelo?
- I know no one named Angelo. - Okay.
- Two words, broskis: bro, skis.
We're going to Vermont to send Angelo off in style.
Are you in for the adventure of a lifetime, my bros?
- Quick question. - Yes.
- Do you recognize the email address that it's from?
- No. No, I do not.
- We're gonna get Angelo blitzed-o!
We're talking drinks, costumes,
saying things you'll regret the next day.
Whoo! [electric guitar plays]
- Okay, but you-- you've opened it.
- I've opened it. - Once you opened it
and read it, are you getting the sense that,
okay, this doesn't seem like spam?
- Yes, exactly. - I want to make sure
all our bros are invited.
Tim the Nut, Cormick the Frog, Uncle Rodolfo,
Brad H, Brad G, Brad F.
- So many Brads. - And of course,
my main almost-married bro, Angelo.
[howls] Blue-80!
- And so--and you're sitting in this office...
- Mm-hmm. - Of--of city workers...
- Yeah. - That's very sort of,
you know, calm and staid and--
- Gray. - It's--it's gray.
- Yes, yes, indeed. - You're reading this email
that sounds like quite an exotic adventure to me.
- Yes, indeed, indeed. And--and very much not my lane.
- Right. - Like, my idea of fun is like,
playing "Dungeons and Dragons" with my buddies on the weekend.
- The frost giant raises its enchanted ice pick
as though to strike a fatal blow.
Novakar, seeker of risks, how do you counter?
- I run chest first towards it.
- You getting a little crazy.
- Getting a little out of control.
Rolling them bones. Rolling those 20-sided dice.
- Are you sure?
- Absolutely.
- And you're dead.
- So is this-- is this email description
of a party exciting-sounding?
- Um, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, not for really my type of person, but I could see yes,
people would be excited about-- and it sounded fun.
And so as I start to read,
I'm reading through and they're talking about,
you know, all the logistics of where we're gonna meet.
And then at the bottom they say, "but hey, we're still
waiting to hear back from these three or four guys."
- Yeah. - And one of the names
was William Novak.
And that's when I realized, oh,
they have a friend with the same name as me.
Our email addresses must be close.
And they made a typo obviously. - Right.
- Mm-hmm. - I didn't really think
I was gonna go on this trip with these guys,
so I wrote back this kind of long email.
I said, this is gonna be so much fun.
We can stay up all night and we can talk about boys.
We can paint our toenails. I was just treating it
like it was a 13-year-old girl's slumber party.
- Right, right, right. - Okay.
- And I just really treated it like that.
And I was like, oh, we can do crosswords
and-- and do our horoscopes.
- Just as a joke and all. - Yeah.
Two days later, I get an email, and it just says back,
"You might think you're joking, but you're not.
"Get to Vermont. We want to meet you.
You sound awesome." - Wait a minute.
Whoa, wait, so they--
they know you're not the Will Novak.
- Oh yeah. Yeah, 'cause I wrote in it--
at the end, I wrote, "Yours in partying,
Will Novak, the one in Phoenix."
[laughter] So instead of just deleting it
like I probably should've, I hit reply all
and I just said, "[bleep] count me in."
both: Whoa! - Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. - Hold on.
I thought you were "Dungeons and Dragons" guy.
- I am, but you know. - Okay, wait.
We got to-- we got to talk about
what compelled you to do that.
- Well, I just thought-- as "Dungeons and Dragons"
has taught me-- when you have an opportunity
for adventure, you take it.
- I accept your call to adventure.
- Bring it in, man.
- Okay, but just--
- Wife check. Is she cool with this?
- Pssh-- uh, well.
- What is your wife thinking?
- She's loving it. My wife, I think the reason
I married her in a lot of ways was because, like,
after dating for 10 days, she's like come move in with me.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - She is the same--
- She has the same spirit. - The same spirit.
The only concern was the money, because at this point,
our daughter's nine or ten months old.
We had just totally gutted and remodeled our historic home,
which took basically our entire life savings.
- Yeah. - So I really didn't have money
to go fly across the country for a ski weekend.
And so, whatever. I put a GoFundMe up.
And it really--frankly, the trip wasn't that expensive.
It was $750, but I did not have $750.
So I put it up on GoFundMe.
- Uh, hey, there. I'm Will Novak.
Uh, you know, a lot of people ask me,
Will, why don't you spontaneously fly
across the country to attend the bachelor party
of someone you've never met?
And I'll give you the honest answer.
It's that plane tickets cost money.
- I tweeted it out.
- So with your help,
I can live out the adventure of a lifetime.
So give it a click.
- And because I worked in city government,
a couple of elected officials start re-tweeting it,
'cause they think it's funny.
- Yeah. - And of course, who follows
elected officials online but the press?
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- This went kind of crazy
in the local media. - Yeah.
- You know, I'm interviewed by the "Arizona Republic,"
and then "USA Today" calls,
and then the "Washington Post" calls.
You know, the newspaper that took down Richard Nixon...
- Yes, yes. - Also wants to talk to me.
These are the same level stories obviously.
- Yeah. Of course.
- And I got interviewed by a show called "Sunrise,"
which is like the "Today Show" of Australia.
So I did like a live... - Oh, international.
- Yeah. - They love bachelor parties.
- They do. - But they call 'em?
- Uh--stag parties. - Yes.
And I did not know that. - Are you at all worried
that Angelo's bachelor party is becoming too much about you?
- Yes, yes. For sure, I was--
I was worried about that. - Right, it's his big moment.
- As far as I knew, Angelo still somehow
is in the dark about all this.
- You know who's really in the dark about all this?
The original Will Novak. [laughter]
He's at home waiting for that email.
- And our top story this evening,
Arizona man's fundraiser to attend a bachelor party
has everyone saying, surely this guy
is the absolute best person named Will Novak.
- Yo, hey, I'm still invited to your party too, right?
- So my phone is--I'm not even paying attention to it,
but it's sitting there just going nuts.
And it's getting retweets and retweets
and donations and donations,
and we had quadrupled the amount of money
we needed in under two hours.
So we've got a few thousand dollars at this point.
Now I've realized I've blackmailed myself.
I've--I've told the internet I'm gonna do this.
- Is this crazy? - Yeah.
But you are Novakar, seeker of risks,
protector of the ring of possibility.
This is the opportunity of a lifetime.
You have to do this. Hey, chest first.
Just make sure they're not murderers.
- [laughs] "Make sure they're not--"
Wait, do you think they could be murderers?
- And the email exchanges
really got to be a lot of talk about murder.
Are you a murderer?
They were very concerned that I was a crazy person.
- And--and the best way to find out
if someone is a murderer is to ask them in an email.
- Are you a murderer? - Yeah.
- They're legally obligated to tell you if asked directly.
- Had you at any point asked them if they are murderers?
[dramatic music]
- Yes, I did. And they also obliged
by the convention and said we are not.
- Okay, good.
Sure, but I would still put it at about 20% odds...
- Right. - That you could wind up
chopped up in a ditch somewhere.
- Yeah. - In Vermont.
- There was a lot of woodchipper concerns.
They said, hey, fly right into Vermont
and we'll pick you up at the airport,
and I said you know what?
I'm gonna fly to Boston and rent a car myself.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That way if anything gets
a little dicey, I've got my own wheels to get out--
or if I just-- we really don't get along.
- Smart, smart. - Yeah.
- I didn't really know, you know, they kept saying,
you got to dress crazy, you got to wear outfits.
And I'm not really a big costume Halloween kind of guy,
so I looked in my closet to see what I had.
- White shirt never goes wrong. - Okay.
- Okay, good.
Remember our honeymoon?
- I've seen it before.
How about this?
[triumphant music]
* *
- Yes. Yes!
- You were dressed this way going...
both: To the airport. - Yeah.
So I had American flag pants. I had an American flag jacket.
And I had-- then I had a rainbow scarf,
and I was just very ostentatiously dressed.
- Yo.
- I show up to the airport. The local news is there,
people are, like, following me through the airport,
and they're like, hey, it's the bachelor party guy.
- All right. Who's ready to party?
- Is there a Mrs. Bachelor Party Guy?
- Yes, there is. - Bachelor Party Guy,
will you sign my baby?
- You got it. Thank you.
[baby coos]
- Bachelor Party Guy! - Over here, over here.
- I'm never washing this baby again.
- Yeah. - I feel like--
- Oh, you're a hero. You're a real hero.
- Beautiful people of terminal three,
now I'm no hero, just a random guy
who answered an email from some other random guys.
- You are a hero, random guy.
all: Random guy! Random guy!
- Thank you. Thank you.
I love all of you!
Sorry. Goodbye, everyone.
all: Goodbye.
Random guy! Random guy!
- Are we supposed to know who the hell he is?
- So I get on the plane and because I have, you know,
red hair and I'm the age I am, and I'm wearing
this American flag stuff, people are looking at me.
I can tell they're looking at me, and finally,
some lady comes across the aisle and says,
"Are you Shaun White, the snowboarder?"
[laughter]
And I said, "Yeah, I am."
- Oh, God. - What?
- They see that I'm flying to the Northeast,
it's wintertime, I've got my American flag stuff on.
I must be going to do some snowboard runs.
- Do you have a history of this?
Do you have a history of, like,
just embodying whatever is needed in a moment?
- I try to say yes to things.
Say yes to the universe, be open to things.
- Okay.
- But one thing that was a concern
was I was on my phone on the plane,
and they were just-- I keep seeing these stories
of this crazy nor'easter that's coming.
So I--I rented a minivan, 'cause it was $18 a day
and that was the cheapest option.
[car honks]
And I'm starting to think, I don't know
that this minivan rental was a great idea.
I really need to upgrade
to a vehicle with four-wheel drive or something.
- Yeah. - Sure.
- So I'm trying to tweet at the car rental company
'cause I can't call 'em, obviously,
I can't call customer service on the plane,
and they're just not being responsive
and they've got one of these automated,
"Thank you for reaching us,"
you know, things that just keeps coming in.
- Yeah. - And all these people
are following it and tweeting it and saying,
"Get him a better car. Get him a better car."
And then another car rental company notices
this is happening and they replied
and they go, we got you.
- Okay. - Don't worry about it.
We'll hook you up.
So we go over to the rental car center
and they're like, "We got you a new car.
Think it be a little better for you than a minivan."
I said, you know, thank you.
And we go around the corner and there is
a $90,000 Maserati Levante,
which is a-- which is a Maserati SUV.
I was like, "Holy smokes."
- What? - Because not to brag,
I got a 2006 Pontiac Vibe
with 200,000 miles on it.
- Take her easy, Will. Here's my question.
Like, is it four-wheel drive? Like, can it handle the snow?
- Turns out it was not, nor did it have snow tires on it.
It had, like, racing tires on it.
- Oh, my God. - But it was still cool.
- So you couldn't drive it. - I could.
- You were like, "Screw it."
- Screw it, we'll drive--it's a Maserati.
I'm never gonna get to drive a Maserati again.
But I mean, I'm going from a car
that has a tape deck in it to this thing that's like--
- It has like a live singer inside, it's just like...
- Yeah. I mean, it's like-- - Curled up in the dashboard.
- It's like Kitt from "Knight Rider."
So I mean, I'm terrified. And then I get outside.
There's black ice everywhere in Boston.
I haven't driven in the snow in seven years at this point.
- Yeah.
- And then finally, once I get into Vermont,
I realize there's, like, no cell coverage in Vermont.
And so I didn't buy a map or anything.
I was just relying on the--my phone and the GPS.
I'm going along and at this point,
it was 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
It says I'm about 10 minutes
from the ski chalet that these guys have.
And I struggle on this road,
and I get halfway down a bridge
and the bridge is closed
because it's, like, snowed out.
And I can't really tell that the bridge collapsed
or is it just maybe not safe. And the GPS goes out on me.
- Oh, my goodness. - Yeah.
[GPS beeping]
What? No, no, no, no.
Hey, hey. No, no, no, no.
- So here I am at 1:00 in the morning.
It's 15 degrees. I'm so tired.
I'm on--running on all this adrenaline.
- Yeah. - [groans]
Damn you, Vermont.
- I have nowhere to go.
- I just--I just wanted to see these guys.
I just wanted to come and visit with some friends.
- I kind of almost cried there.
- This lighthearted fun sort of like--like
a goofy American saga
just turned into a survival drama.
- That's right. That's right, a little bit.
- This is like--like the movie
or that--that book "Alive."
- Yes. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You have to eat your arm. - Yeah.
- Your own arm. - Yeah, yeah.
I was--I was probably too ready to eat my own arm.
And so I back up down the thing.
I'm like, "Well, I'll just start driving,
"and maybe I'll find a gas station,
and someone will know where this address is or whatever."
- Ooh.
- And, driving about ten minutes,
and I see there are four Vermont state trooper vehicles
to the side of the road. - Mm.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
- They've all got, you know, lights on.
I'm like, "Oh, it's--four cars, middle of the night.
What's--big, big crime must have happened."
And it turns out there was a dead deer,
which is one of the bigger capers, you know, in Vermont.
- Hey, why are you drawing a chalk outline for a deer?
- Can't be sure it wasn't foul play.
- Oh.
- Right. - It was a murder.
[dramatic orchestral sting]
- And so luckily the troopers were super nice guys.
I showed them the address and they're like,
"Oh, yeah. You're like right there.
Just go like left, left, left, and then boom, you're there."
- Oh, okay.
- So I--now I know where I'm going.
And as I come around this hill,
I immediately knew that's got to be the ski chalet.
[metal music plays] What was the name of the band?
They were all really into this band.
Named after a dinosaur, I forget what--what--
- Mastodon.
Yes.
They were the Mastodon guys.
I roll the window down, and I can hear metal music
just blasting, just shredding.
the Mastodon.
- Did you know that they were metal guys?
- Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
They had told me they, like, love metal.
- Are you a metal guy? - No, no.
I'm a--I'm a ska and Weird Al guy.
Just dorky.
- Yeah. - Dorky, dork music.
- Hold on a second, this is the--this is the meeting.
- This is it. We're almost there.
- This is a human connection between you and these guys.
[romantic music swells]
* *
- Hey.
- Other Will Novak, it is time.
- Wait-- [stammers]
This moment.
This moment where you connected with this group
for the first time. - It was crazy.
- Was it bear hugs and, like, high fives?
- It was like mosh pit.
[all cheering, metal music blaring]
- Whoo! - El Bro-ito.
- Will Novak Two! - Yeah.
- I'm Angelo, man.
Yeah. Welcome to my bachelor party.
- Thanks for accidentally inviting me.
- Dude, you're my best friend now, man.
- Okay, yeah, sure. That's great, pal.
- Party on, my friend.
- And one of their buddies is passed out on the couch
like this with an amp right next to his ear.
I'm like this guy's gonna lose his hearing.
I immediately go into dad mode.
- Still, I need a more vivid picture of this.
Are they, like, dousing you with beer?
- Yeah, yeah. - And yeah.
- And then here's the other thing I don't think
I've mentioned yet. I don't drink.
- Whoo! So this is pretty crazy.
Here's something crazy.
Does anyone here drink chocolate milk?
- No. - No.
- Okay!
- Now I'm not against it.
I don't care but it's just not my jam, right?
So they're all trying to hand me beers.
I'm like, "Oh, that's okay. That's fine.
Do you have a Yoo-Hoo?"
I'm a big Yoo-Hoo fan.
- I love your impression of yourself.
- Yeah, that's me.
- This must be at what? 3:00 in the morning?
- Yeah, and we party till the sun comes up,
and, you know, they had already been there for a day
before I was able to get out. - Yeah.
- So there, you know, there's beer cans everywhere.
- Sleeping bags. - Sleeping bags.
I'm stepping over bodies to get to where I need to go.
And then I'm like, "Okay, guys, so like,
which one's my room?"
- Hey, Angelo, is there another room to sleep?
Nope. Okay.
- What was the smell?
- You know, when you're--you ever been real close
to a bag of Doritos
and you open it, that sort of Dorito fart?
- Yeah, yeah. - Okay, yeah.
- That was--it was a lot of that
and sort of carpet beer.
- Okay. - Powder cheese, carpet beer.
- Yes, yes, and so-- - You have a gift,
because that is an extremely vivid description.
And I totally get it.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I totally get what that is.
- Ow! - Oh, jeez, sorry, sorry.
* *
Do you care if I'm right here? Okay.
So we sleep, and I mean,
we sleep till 2:00 in the afternoon the next day.
So like we've got-- it's like a clown car
full of guys in the Maserati.
You know, we get to the mountain.
And the media hype is still crazy.
The local chamber of commerce is there.
- Yeah!
- On behalf of all of the good people of Vermont,
we welcome you and thank you.
Please accept these Vermontian gifts
as a token of our appreciation.
Our maple syrup. - Oh, wow.
[applause] - Yes!
And pints of Ben and Jerry's.
- Okay, actually, I'm lactose--that's fine.
- And our natural forested beauty.
You can't take those with you unless you want to.
It's Vermont. - You are polite, yes.
- So you and--you and Angelo are having fun with it.
- Oh, yeah, he's loving it. He's loving it.
- I'm so stoked that I chose to have my bachy-P
up in this state.
- Yeah, I was going to ask, what made you choose Vermont?
- Me and the boys, huge maple syrup guys.
all: Chug, chug, chug.
- I mean, again, it made the trip cheaper
'cause we're getting all this--all these freebies
and it's great. - You felt like a Beatle?
- I felt like a Beatle, like a low level--
- Which one? - Probably Ringo.
- Okay. But that's still Ringo.
- Top four. He's a top-four Beatle.
- He's a Beatle. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- He's still a Beatle. - Sure, yeah.
- You know what I love is that you're just like
the ambassador of nothing.
- Vermont thanks you for nothing.
- Whoo! - You've accomplished nothing.
- You know it.
- You are known for nothing.
- Always have been.
- There is so much you haven't done.
- Thank you. - All right.
Drink that tree piss, Will Novak Two.
- Yeah. - Whoo!
- They put us up on these sort of like, you know,
when you win the Olympics, the little podium.
We're, like, standing on a podium.
- I'm number one! all: Yeah!
- I'm number two. all: Whoo!
- I'm number right here. - Yeah, yeah, you are.
- I'm getting married to the love of my life,
and I couldn't be happier.
- So we're having a bunch of fun and they're like,
"All right, let's-- let's go to the bar."
[hard rock music playing]
* *
- Ah! One more round! all: Yeah!
[club music]
* *
- And then I see as Angelo kinda walks in,
and everyone's cheering him as he comes in.
- Yeah, of course! - Angelo! Angelo! Angelo!
all: [chanting] Angelo, Angelo!
- And so Angelo starts, like, dancing.
He's in the center of the room and he starts
unzipping his ski thingy and he strips down.
- My body!
- This dude's almost naked!
- Everyone's drunk. - Yeah.
We're knocking tables over. - Yeah.
- So like it did get a little out of control.
- It's a ski town. The parties get crazy.
- Yeah, they do, but I think we were--
- This is what's so beautiful about what you've done
is you brought this, like, celebratory, open-minded...
- Yeah. - Energy to this thing.
And Angelo, the--the groom gets to bask in all of this.
- Yeah, yeah.
That's what--I was happy that it really
kind of--the spotlight was there shifted to him.
- Yes, yes. - That's great.
- That was great. We weren't there yet,
but we were getting close to property damage level partying.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And so they--
and they politely said, "All right, that's good.
You should go to the next bar."
- Whoo!
- Yeah! [all whooping]
- Shots, shots, shots, shots.
- No shots, shots of water. It's a one-and-one ratio.
You're going to want--'cause you won't feel good tomorrow.
Hydrate, hydrate, okay? You good?
I realize it's time to wrap it up.
So I go out to the Maserati.
- I said I'll be back. Whoa.
- Is that your 'Rati? - Oh, hey, Mayor, yeah.
Just gonna warm it up for the boys.
- Oh, I had to walk five miles to get here...
[engine revving] In Birkenstocks.
- Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the roar of this Maserati.
And so, I go back inside and say,
"Okay, the car's getting warmed up.
It'll be ready in just a few minutes."
And as we come out of that second bar,
I see this drunk guy
who's not part of our group I don't think.
I don't really know who he was.
- Yeah. - He was just like a blur.
- Hey, whoa, who, whoa.
- Hops into the Maserati, shuts the door.
- It's Vermont. No rules, baby.
[engine revs]
- No, no, no. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
- Maserati!
- Maserati's gone.
- Oof! [laughs]
Oh, nothing I can do about that.
Better get back to my mayor duties.
- And I did not spring for the insurance.
- Whoa. Turn.
- Oh, oh, oh.
- $90,000 car is gone.
- And you're just thinking, "Darn."
- Yeah. So I'm just like full meltdown.
- $90,000.
We could've sent our daughter to the three state schools,
or one semester at NYU. I'm ruined.
- What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
Do I try to call the car rental company to explain?
I'm so sorry, I--I don't know what to tell you. I--
And then eventually, like 20 minutes later,
J-turns back into the parking lot.
Like, skids out-- - The Maserati.
- The Maserati's there. Perfect condition.
- Oh, thank God.
- Told you. It's Vermont.
[throwing up]
- That is a full Ferris Bueller parking attendant moment.
- I mean, yeah. - Yes, yes.
Exactly. - Oh, my gosh.
- And I just-- the, like, level of relief.
- Okay. Yeah.
- Eventually, we're like, wow, this is, you know, a great day.
And--and so we all just sort of hug and say one last goodbye.
- But--but how are you feeling about all this?
Was it still like, "Wow, that was..."
- It was sort of bittersweet. It was like--but it was.
It was super fun. They were such nice guys.
narrator: And this was, you know, a great day.
In fact, a great weekend.
- Bring it in here!
- Thanks, man. Oh, hey.
narrator: But unfortunately,
all great weekends must come to an end.
- Hey, come on, man. What are we doing here?
- Bye, my bro. - Yep, see you.
- Dude, for real, man. Love you, dude.
- She's a lucky lady.
All right. I guess that's it.
narrator: And so Will Novak,
the one from Phoenix,
returned to Mesa, Arizona,
but he was never the same.
The new Will had a deeper connection
to his fellow man
forged in the mosh pits, bars,
and Maseratis of northern Vermont.
But most of all,
Will now had gratitude for life,
for adventures,
and for his boring job in city government.
[sentimental music]
- Hey, thank you.
narrator: So there you have it.
As for me, I guess I'll take the rest of the afternoon off.
- Thanks, Mr. Narrator.
- No, thank you, Will Novak.
- Did you get a sense that this was the end
of--of all this or that
you had made some friends for the rest of your life?
- I think, yeah, in a way I made friends
and we all connected. We still stay in touch.
I still follow them on Instagram.
I saw when Angelo's baby was born.
She's adorable. - Aww.
- Yeah, I think most people would have ignored the email,
or they say no to things, right?
'Cause I'm busy, I've got to do whatever I've got to do.
- Yeah. - I've got life.
And I think if you say yes to adventure,
I think people like that.
- So ultimately, would you say
that the moral of the story is basically say yes?
- Yeah, say yes. Be open.
What's the worst that could happen?
- Yeah, seize the day. - Seize the day, you know.
A stranger is just a best friend you haven't met yet.
- Well, that was an incredible story.
- Well done, sir.
[club music]
* *
- A Phoenix man is getting worldwide attention,
all because of a typo and an accidental email
that invited him to a bachelor party
all the way up in Vermont.
35-year-old Will Novak got invited to
a guy named Angelo's bachelor party
at a Vermont ski resort, and he decided to go.
- * To the high, to the high To the high, to the high *
* We gon' take it to the high *
- I don't know how well the audio is going to work,
but I'm in the bathroom of the airplane.
There's people on the airplane that think I'm Shaun White,
the snowboarder, because I have red hair
and I'm flying to the northeast
and I'm in this red, white, and blue get up.
- * Take it to the high *
* To the high, to the high, to the high *
- Okay, so I'm driving. So this is dicey.
But if someone can Google how to turn off
the heated seats in a Maserati, my ass and back are on fire.
Thank you.
It's 2:00 in the morning.
I'm about five minutes from the destination.
I have zero cell phone service
and the GPS wants me to go across this bridge.
I can't reroute on the GPS because I have no service.
I have no--I didn't pack a map.
I was trusting the GPS, and that was stupid.
I can't call the guys because, remember,
no cell phone service.
I'm not sure what to do.
Good news, even though the bridge was out,
just down this piece, there was a dead deer
and there were four cop cars investigating the dead deer.
The cops gave me directions.
The deer, sadly, is dead.
[bright upbeat music]
* *