There is a story that I shared about my mishaps in aircraft fabrication and @crimsonclad thinks it is the funniest thing ever, so it only seems right to immortalize it on the blockchain.

Sit back and enjoy a good laugh at my own expense!

As I've mentioned before, I worked building aircraft for a stint, having found my knack in composite fabrication. I lucked out stupendously with a small start up company where I pretty much was my own manager and got to hone my skills at my pace and to level of perfection. It was wonderful.

Naturally, being the living embodiment of grace and poise that I am, and being... moderately unattended, I had quite a few mishaps. Chalk it up to learning, right?

Well, one day, I picked myself a whole bouquet of oopsie-daisies of a spectacular variety.

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That long bit there resting on the milk crates is the spar. They are like the spine of your wings, and the wings are constructed around it. This was taken during a lax test fitting, but you get the idea.

Around where the spars meet on the inside, there is a support box that holds everything in place. Well, I was assembling that big black box and the metric ass tons of support that runs down the inside of it. As you can imagine, it has to hold a LOT of weight and take a beating from the wings flexing.

So picture me, stitchy, crammed into this godforsaken plane, in the dead heat of summer, swearing like a sailor with his dick in a bear trap, while epoxy resin drips ERR'WHERE. And I do mean everywhere.

It's in my hair.

It's on my face.

It's all over my clothes.

I should make it clear, that while working this job, I was used to being covered and coated 24/7 in fiberglass and carbon fiber. If you've never had the pleasure, imagine taking a nice hot shower (like the mugginess of Florida summer), and while your pores are all nice and open, smearing hot sauce all over yourself and marinating. If you get carbon fiber in there as well, it is like tossing yourself on a fire ant pile for good measure.

You either adapt, or you go batshit insane. I, personally, adapted.

So I didn't notice when the epoxy all over me started to cure, the chemical reaction causing it to harden being further expedited not only by the ambient temperature, but my body heat.

I crawled out of the plane and I went for a hard earned cigarette and a restroom break.

I remember it all so clearly.

I glanced in the mirror momentarily to check my appearance, noted that I looked like I had just left some kind of heathen bukkake. Suspicious looking stains splattered all over my clothes. I giggled.

I moved to pull down my pants. Waistband came down just fine, all aces.
But then, I was met with resistance. A lot of it.

I am sure the sheer panic on my face was beautiful to behold as I dumbly spun around, trying to see to assess the situation. I flailed my arms in quiet horror. And then hung my head in shameful defeat. I had finally done it. I had just glued my own pants to my ass.

I epoxied my work pants to myself like some kind of crude chastity device.

AND OH MY GOD, I HAD TO PEE.

I stuck my head out and looked around to see if any of the painters were about, and ran back to my workshop. I stood in front of my workbench and sighed, sheepishly grabbing a bottle of pure acetone, a funnel, and scampered back to the bathroom to hide my shame.

I spent the next twenty minutes soaking myself in pure acetone, wincing, and praying to pretty much ANY deity that would hear my prayer.

I stood there and gave myself the most poignant pep talk of my life.

"You're tough as fuck."
"Look at you out there building a plane. Breakin' all them societal standards."
"You wouldn't let some glorified glue get the best of you, would you?!"
"You're going to piss your damn pants unless you do something soon."

I bounced on the balls of my feet a couple times, walked a brisk circle around the bathroom like a caged tiger, and took a deep breath.

SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHRCKKKKK

The sound alone was painful. Never mind the industrial waxing I just performed on my own posterior. And the layer of skin that went with it.

I was a bit inconsolable at that point, but I had a job to do. I cleaned up my sniveling face covered in ass-pain tears, and tied up my hair to go back to work, trying to mask how ashamed I was.

I stepped out of the restroom and looked up. That was when I came face to face with my boss, who looked a touch more than a tad concerned. Turns out, the hammering pressure washer I was sure would mask my shrill shriek and whimpering of pain was simply not loud enough to drown out my war cry.

"JESUS CHRIST, WHAT HAPPENED?!"

I had an instant, and only that, in which to weigh the shame and embarrassment scales. What would be less mortifying?

I looked him dead in the eyes and said:

"... Really bad period."

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Credit for gifs to tenor and tumblr.