I work in an office building which is a few hundred feet away from giant freeway road construction project. CalTrans is building about three to four hundred ramps and overpasses and braiding them all together to connect two pathologically clogged bay area roadways. It’s so complex that they’ll have an exit for you that will put you back on the freeway you were already on BEFORE you exited the first time, all so you have more time to choose which of the many exits to take and read the thirty to forty road signs. My theory is that you’ll be able get stuck behind yourself in the fast-lane and give yourself the finger. A closed loop of road rage. Time travel paradoxes be damned.

So my coworkers and I have all been watching the build progress, and every so often they open a new connector or entrance or exit and it’s kind of fun to explore and to watch the progress they’re making. Well, most of the time. Sometimes they do something that doesn’t help much, like funnel forty lanes of traffic through a concrete walled alley where teen agers shoot paintpall pellets at you. Or they periodically they bust out the effing ginourmous post hole pile driver.

This thing is about three or four stories tall and all it does is lift a giant metal battering ram up and then drop it into the hole they’re pile driving into the ground (paging Dr. Freud). You may guess that this is a little loud. You can actually hear it in our building several offices deep, though double paned windows, office doors, and Star Wars posters. I used to have a window office facing the spot where they’re doing this work and it’s more than a little annoying when they were running it all day, everyday. Clang. So. Clang. How. Clang. Is. Clang. The. Clang. Project. Clang. Coming. Clang. Along? Clang. Clang. Clang. Shit!

So today was a beautiful morning. Blue skies. No clouds. Around seventy degrees. I had fun zipping around frightened minivan pilots in my little red corvette. Heel toeing into corners, lane splitting at 110 MPH, passing on the shoulder, jumping creeks in an effort to loose that pesky Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (get ‘em flash!), all while rocking out to my Lynyrd Skynyrd cassette I bought at the stop n’ sip truck stop. And all while holding my double tall non-fat cappuccino from Starbucks in one hand, the gear shift in one hand, and the steering wheel in one hand. A typical commute for me.

So I pull in to a spot at work, open the door and am greeted by the pile driver’s cheery clang. Then I notice something. After every drop into the hole, and after every window vibrating clang, a puff of diesel smoke chugs out of the machine with a very loud whuufff. Then the clang echoes off the buildings behind me a couple of times with a clang-alang-alang. Then the pile driver drops again with its bone rattling clang. WTH? All the noises were bumping along in a catchy musical rhythm! I stopped, cocked my ears like a curious dog, and listened for a few seconds. Wow. And in stereo too, the clang-whuff in my left ear, the clang-alang-alang in my right ear. So I got my cardboard out of my truck and break danced for two hours. Then I did a little popping. Then I did the robot (more cool videos here).

After that I strutted into work with my own kickin’ industrial soundtrack. And, yes, I am a ladies man.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.
Clang-whuff-clang-alang-alang.

Once I entered the building though, it was back to the Clang. Hey. Clang. Good. Clang. Morning. Clang. Clang. Clang. Shit!