Longtime readers will recall my recent encounter with a tree branch on my occasional neighborhood loop. Branch a nudge low, head a nudge high, chaos ensues.

But we’ve peacefully co-existed since, with me bowing and/or curtsying as I approached it, and the tree declining to give me any Jehovah’s Witness literature. The perfect marriage, or at least a long trial period where we live together until I realize it loops the toilet paper on the bottom rather than the top and we end in a bitter dispute over who gets to keep the Nina Simone albums.

So it was with great sadness that I encountered this today.

Yes, the branch is gone. It has been hacked off by someone other than myself, and I need to stress the part about how I did NOT do this and even if I wanted to I am WAY too lazy to do something that requires that much work and I’m guessing the homeowner would become suspicious of the roar from the front yard and it gives me flashbacks of the “Fargo” wood chipper scene and besides I only listen to Nina Simone because I have a thing for Bridget Fonda don’t judge.

And so I did my loops today, never stooping. And it wasn’t as much fun. There has always been an anticipation going into that stretch, the game of just how far down do I need to dip to avoid it. How fast can I go while ducking without getting conked. Whatever happened to Bridget Fonda, anyhow? Today, it was just a run.

I always hated that branch. Now I miss it.

Don’t it always seem to go?