Where I live, periodically the trees here and there are pruned in a most, um, decisive way. I’m not sure why they do it like this, but they trim off all the leaves, as well as all of the branches that were growing the leaves. This leaves what looks like a large, gnarled log. And when they do a whole street full of trees, like, say, on Rodeo drive, if just looks like some tree disease has killed them all. It takes a couple of years for these trees to bounce back, but they always do, somehow.
I have to wonder how this extreme tree surgery happens. They seem to almost always be the same type of tree too, so it must be some sort of vendetta: like some tree-trimming business owner’s wife was killed by a falling whatever-kind-of-tree-it-is, and he’s spending the rest of his life getting revenge. I can see him now, raving an angry ramble to himself: “Yeah, you thought you’d beaten me, didn’t you, when you took away the woman I loved! But it only made me stronger, and left me more time to get my revenge on you! Ha ha ha ha!!” Either that, or some city manager somewhere keeps thinking: “Man, I’m tired of all these fuckin’ leaves blocking my view of the tree stumps all the time.” And so he tells the tree trimmers: “Yeah, just get rid of all the green stuff, and whatever else it might grow on. I just want a dry, dead stump when you’re finished. Now don’t disappoint me!”
They always seem to do these violent tree mutilations when it’s the height of spring, and all the other trees around all the surrounding areas are in full bloom, sort of like a Monet painting, or a Klimt landscape. So then you’ve got what looks like a dead tree next to all the lush, green ones. This must be pretty embarrassing for whatever kind of tree this is. All the other types of trees are left alone to grow all the leaves they like, and I’m sure they grow extra ones too, just to rub it in that they can. This must be like the tree version of talking to a girl in gym class, and then some bully sneaks up and pulls your shorts down, making everyone laugh at you. You just know all the other trees are laughing at them, too. Perhaps this is the reason these trees always drip that sticky sap on our cars, ruining our windshield wipers and paint jobs. They obviously do it on purpose, and now I think I know why.
