My “coveralls,” however, make me look like the ill-fated love child of Big Bird and a large grocery bag. I had to suffer the further indignity of being an extremely bunched-up, extra-poofy yellow grocery bag because the shop had only one size available: MEN’S 2X LARGE. (I may be a lot of things, but Men’s 2x Large I am not even close.) Furthermore, it was hard not to suspect that my coveralls were actually some form of hazing by the maintenance crew. After all they were suspiciously pulled out of a cabinet labeled “SPILL RESPONSE."
Clad in a color that seemed to scream, TOXIC CLEANUP GOING ON HERE, as the relatively new kid on the block, I was not really able to blend in anywhere today. No tree or shrub provided sufficient cover; you could see me coming miles away. As I passed people, most of them tried to suppress smiles. What could I do? I’m only a Park volunteer.
The bright yellow color was only the beginning of my problems. My coveralls also made a hell of a lot of noise – whenever I walked with anyone and that person tried to talk to me, the rather obnoxious rustling of my voluminous plastic folds made it all but impossible to hear what the other person was saying. (One of the crew said in no uncertain terms that I sounded like a giant diaper.) My sunny garb also gained me a truly unfortunate nickname – Oompa Loompa. (I’d have to re-watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to determine whether this name has any legitimate basis, but my fear is that it does.) When yet another member of the crew called me Oompa Loompa later in the day, I realized that there was a real danger that my moniker could become permanent. This nickname has the benefit of being easier to pronounce than my real name, but if the crew starts singing Oompa-Loompa-Doompa-Dee-Do , I swear I am getting on the first plane back to Anchorage.
Putting on the coveralls was only the first step in a seemingly endless series of steps related to our painting today. First, I had to wait for the other painter to return from bailing boats. Then we had to set up the sprayer. The windows had to be taped. Buckets of paint had to be lugged to various places. After we had sprayed a very small remaining patch of all leftover from yesterday's work, there was much monkey business with moving the scaffolding to reach our next second story wall. We rolled the scaffolding right over a large shrub, and it was then decided that this large shrub should be killed anyway. So then there was further monkey business involving an effort to tear the shrub out with bare hands, despite a request that someone find some clippers. After the scaffolding had been pushed as close as possible to our desired spot, it became apparent it was not going to position us as we needed. Then there was much consulting, chin-stroking, head-scratching, all of which led to us deciding that this area could not be painted without a man-lift. The man-lift, however, was out of the question because the backhoe needed a new hose that had not yet arrived from Anchorage.
The irony of all of this is that although I had donned on my ridiculous yellow coveralls shortly after 8am, and already had some paint smears on me, by lunch break I myself had done no actual painting whatsoever.
Real painting commenced after lunch break, and at some point in the day, I realized that there was moisture building up in my suit. To my alarm, I also realized that the moisture was coming from me. I was sweating up a storm, and the rather impermeable aspect of my suit was keeping it all in there. I worried that by the end of the day, that I, like many things in the maintenance shop, would smell like sweaty man sock.
“Sweaty Man Sock” is a smell I first encountered yesterday while moving some chairs. Someone had put a bucket on a chair that had a seemingly harmless-looking rag in it. The harmless-looking rag, however, was emitting an odor that was truly awful, something that can be only described vaguely as Sweaty Man Sock. Since then, I’ve smelled Sweaty Man Sock in many maintenance-related places. And my greatest fear is that soon, it will happen while I’m sniffing myself.
In addition to smelling Sweaty Man Sock in various places, I’m starting to see some other repeated themes around the maintenance shop, even though today was only the second full day of serving with the general maintenance crew. For example, this week there has been much talk of the broken hose in the backhoe. The backhoe is apparently essential to most of the Port Alsworth construction/maintenance-related projects; it apparently is some kind of Magical Mover Of All Things. Of course, the Park only has one backhoe. Many a task floated up as a possible activity for the day, only to sink back to the bottom as soon as someone remembered, “Oh but we need the backhoe to do that.”
Man-lift for painting?
Backhoe.
Pour concrete forms?
Backhoe first.
We spent a good amount of time today lamenting the defunct backhoe and its very important replacement hose which, although promptly ordered, has yet to arrive. The backhoe has become our Holy Grail, our Achilles’ heel, our fatal Shakespearean flaw. I think if our backhoe hose arrives before I leave Port Alsworth, I may just have to pee my pants which would be a real problem in a yellow plastic suit.
The backhoe is typical of the kinds of challenges we have here. While painting in the shop today, I looked out the garage door to see three members of the crew pushing an old Chevy truck with Government license plates on the gravelly runway. Fifteen minutes later, I spotted the shop mechanic on a four-wheeler facing the front of the truck trying to nudge the truck away.
Today was a Friday, and aside from my Oompa Loompa costume, I did feel as if I was starting to get the hang of things. For one thing, at our 3pm break, to my surprise, I discovered that I, too, wanted to do nothing during our 15-20 minutes off but sit in my chair, say little, and stare blankly out through our open garage door. Today’s silence was broken only by relatives of one member of our crew who had trudged up from the runway into the garage, apparently looking for a bathroom for the little kids. A younger woman lingered at the doorway. The guy on our crew waved at her and in the direction of the older woman chaperoning the children and said, “This is my daughter, and that’s Martha.”
He then waved at all of us in the maintenance crew and said, “This is this and that and that and that.” I’m not sure if I was a “this” or “that,” but decided that as long as it was not Oompa Loompa, I’m OK with either.
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