Just waaaaaah

I've spent the past two days in a hole.  A hot, hateful little hole.  The nose gear well in the lower fuselage.  Without a doubt, the most challenging thing I've done yet on that F-15.  

I'm short.  I've always been short.  I can't help it.  I'm clamping way up inside the nose gear well and I cannot reach stuff.  I stand on a small maintenance stand and still can't quite reach where I need to.  I could straddle the two platforms there that separate the left and right sides of the plane (and I have done that) but that's not really safe.  There's hydraulic fluid all around and a foot could easily slip.  Today, I questioned for the first time if I'm really cut out for this job.  I'm absolutely convinced that Satan himself designed the F-15.  No joke.

Everything is a pain in the butt.  Everything is in tight, stupid little places that you can't get to.  I hope that with time, this stuff will get easier for me but for now, what do I do??  You're talking about a girl who, until six weeks ago, had never even heard of a clamp much less put one ON something and the only tool experience I had was using a hammer and a cordless screwdriver to hang pretty pictures on my walls and hex keys to put my IKEA furniture together. 

Air rachet?  What the hell is that?  5/16 socket??  Are you kidding me?  And I'd never turned a wrench IN MY LIFE.

I have now, though.  It might not be Cadillac style but I'm doing it.

Oh, and did I mention that this little hole I'm tiptoeing up into is HOT??  Oh, good Lord, it's hot.  No air circulating up in there at all.  I have fans blowing right on me and my feet and legs are nice and cool but my head is a hot sweaty mess and the bump cap just makes it worse.

Waaaaah.  I intend to get that crap done ASAP so I can get out of there.  Hopefully by Friday.  Thank goodness I'm short and my husband is tall.  Standing on my tiptoes for 24 years to kiss him has made my calf muscles strong and well-defined.  I be needin' them calf muscles this week.
 
But my hair.  MY HAIR.  Ugh.  I know this, too, is something I'm just going to have to get over.  I'll probably get a cute short little cut this summer because it's already so hot out there.  And I'm sure I'll be buying stock in dry shampoo by fall.  I've been using this and it works pretty good.  Although it works better when I just spray some into my hand and rub it into my hair than spray it directly on my hair like the directions say.  Whatever works, right??  I remember dry shampoo from back in the day.  It was called Psssssst and it worked great in a pinch.  I used it a few times when I was a teenager in the summertime.  My hair is so fine and oily and blah that I wash it twice a day.  Always have.  So you can see how I'm hating the bump cap hot sweaty mess of it all.

This, too, shall pass.  I believe the Lord put me in that hangar for a reason and I know that He has a plan for me.  But I also believe that just as soon as I fulfill my co-op obligation to the base, I am outta there.  I'mma find me a job with some AC!  Larry doesn't call me his princess for nothin'.