Critter

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AIR: I met Steve “Critter” LaPaglia in a mall parking lot when I was 17. Our County was pretty rural at the time, so those of us who had cars or friends who had cars would congregate in town on Friday and Saturday nights. I was out with my friend, and they knew each other. He came riding up on a street legal dirt bike - long hair, mustache, wearing a red and white long sleeved-shirt. Meeting him made every single hair on my body stand on end. To this day, I vividly remember that moment.

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FUEL: I did the marriage, kids, domestication thing and he did the club, bouncer, party thing. But our paths kept crisscrossing over the years. Everyone knows about the six degrees of separation, but with Critter, the degrees of separation were two... maybe 3 max.

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 He lived across the parking lot from my first husband and I in our apartment complex. They were friends. He was at my apartment all of the time. We gave him a 4-foot stuffed Scooby Doo that I had won at Cedar Point amusement park. He proudly bungee corded it to the back of his truck. After my son was born, he stopping coming around. But still, randomly, he would be out with people that I knew. I would be out with people that he knew. We were always bumping into each other... for years.

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SPARK: I had been divorced for about 3 years by this point. My best friend was going on a first date. She asked me to be her wing-woman. As it turned out, Crit ended up being the wing-man for the exact same first date. We were both 39 and single.

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CUMBUSTION