Downtown Knoxville is like a little piece of heaven

Construction, as those who frequent downtown Knoxville or most other central urban areas know, is a more or less permanent state of affairs. Everywhere you go, there will be some portion of some street where something is being built. It’s just a fact of life and there’s no avoiding it.

Also, as most people know, when a heavy vehicle is set in “reverse,” and given power, it will make a beeping noise. It’s so that people know to get out of the way of the vehicle because the operator may not be able to see them. This is a safety feature. The law generally approves of safety and precautions that can help people avoid grievous bodily injury — which is why such equipment is mandatory on heavy vehicles.

Heavy vehicles, that is, like the construction trucks that are parked up and down the street refurbishing the office building next door to my office so some developer can sell overpriced lofts to single urban hipsters to live in with their little snack dogs and ficus trees while they listen to jazz and drink overpriced iced coffee.

It is for this glorious objective, then, that I’ve been listening to a safety beep from a construction vehicle right outside my window, more or less continuously, for SIX GODDAMNED HOURS today.

Don’t mind me — I’m only trying to take a deposition up here. I don’t need to hear myself think, no-o-o-o-o-o! Much less hear what the witness is saying. Please! You just go on about your business. D’ya think you could obstruct some traffic while you’re at it, too? People other than me deserve to be inconvenienced, too.

Dude! Are you that freaking oblivious to your surroundings? If you don’t want the truck to go anywhere while you’re working, put the fucking thing in neutral already before some of the old-timers around town confuse your noise for an air raid siren and shoot out the street lights in case the Japanese Navy is getting ready to bomb us.