If you don't like the way I'm running, stay off the sidewalk!

Dear Madly Besotten Elderly Neighbors,

Congratulations on your romance! Because we don't know each other, I am not sure whether you've been happily married for decades and just can't keep your crepe-skinned paws off each other, or if you steamed up each other's spectacles from across a crowded bingo parlor only recently.

However long you've been together, clearly you can't get enough companionship. Clearly, when you're together, the rest of the world doesn't exist. Including me.

When you're together, I don't exist; yes, that must be it. There's no other explanation for how you completely ignore me every single morning when I come charging towards you like a bull during my run.

I'm usually in the middle of my speedwork on the return trip home just as the two of you slowly amble from your home towards wherever it is the two of you are sneaking off to at 6 a.m.

Because you just can't stop squinting amorously at each other, you never notice the heavily perspiring woman wearing an ENORMOUS BLINKING HOT PINK SAFETY LIGHT racing quickly in your direction.

You don't hear the, "Excuse me! Coming through! Excuse me! Could you please MOVE???" because the sounds of your hearts beating in true, passionate love drown out everything else.

Speaking of your hearts, I really hope I didn't seriously damage either of yours this morning (like cause a coronary or anything) when I screamed at the top of my lungs, "ON YOUR LEFT!" I don't mean any offense, but you both surely have ample amounts of love for ample amounts of food, as well as ample amounts of love for each other (do you dine by candle light at The Melting Pot every night??), which means the two of you walking side by side takes up ample amounts of the sidewalk, if not the entire width of it. So this morning when we happened to cross paths where the sidewalk was surrounded on both sides by mud puddles, I really had no choice but to run in between the two of you, as I could not get my beautiful Nike Lunar Glides dirty. (The love you have for each other reminds me very much of the love I have for the one pair of sneakers I've ever owned that have treated my feet with the dignity they deserve.)

It was like running in between two overstuffed armchairs; it didn't hurt me, and I hope it didn't hurt you. But still, I do worry I might have given you quite a shock. So I hope those hearts of yours are pumping as steadily as they always have.

I hope you've also now become aware of my presence.

Maybe this is a good time to formerly introduce myself. My name is Jorie, and I run almost every day on the same path where you take your love-struck promenade. We're going to have to share the sidewalk, you and I, for a long time. I know you want it all to yourselves, but it's simply too dark for me to run on the street and there are too many iguanas, frogs, bugs, lizards and rodents in the muddy greenery flanking the sidewalk for me to run in the dirt.

So if you see an ENORMOUS BLINKING HOT PINK SAFETY LIGHT and hear someone shouting loudly "ON YOUR LEFT!!!", just snuggle a little closer together and let me by.

For lovebirds like you, surely an excuse for even more snuggling has got to be a welcome thing.