12/20/06- ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas - Maintenance Style

(Adapted from A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, 1823)

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the plant,
not a creature was stirring, not even an ant.
The socks were installed in the bag house with care,
all ready to filter the dust from the air.

The managers were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of profits danced in their heads.
And Jim in his hardhat, and I in my cap,
had just settled down for long night shift nap.

When out in the sewage plant arose such a clatter,
I leapt from my chair to see what was the matter.
To the exit I flew like a madman on fire,
Tore open the door, looking low, and then higher.

The moon on the clarifier shone with a glow,
and gave a clear view of the valley below.
When, what to my bloodshot eyes should appear,
but a rusty sleigh and eight scrawny reindeer.

With a tired old driver, all dirty and sick,
I thought for a moment “That can’t be St. Nick!”
Slower than turtles, his scurvy deer came,
And he wheezed and rattled and called them bad names:

“Now Loser! Now Slacker!
Now, Doofus and Creepy!
On, Convict! On, Coward!
On Blunder and Sleepy!
To the top of the sludge press!
To the top of screw!
Now fly away! Fly away!
Fly away! Pew!"

Like welding slag blown away with a hose,
the old sleigh shuddered and slowly rose.
So up to the rooftop the stinkers they flew,
with the sleigh full of tools, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, with an echo, I heard on the roof,
the stamping and stumbling of each tired hoof.
As I went back inside and was turning around,
down the vent stack St. Nicholas slid with no sound.

He fell on the macerator pump with a crunch,
It was filled with turds and yesterday’s lunch.
A bundle of tools he had strapped to his back,
And he looked so miserable opening his sack.

His eyes—how they squinted! His grimace, how mean!
His fists were all withered, his face was pale green!
He grumbled and muttered about his sad plight,
How his elves and paid helpers kept him up all night.

I expected a pipe to be hanging from his lips,
But instead he swigged whiskey, and not little sips.
He was ornery and bitter, and he seemed very stressed,
His maintenance program was not the world’s best.

He was skinny and worn, not a jolly old elf,
and I pitied the fool, in spite of myself.
And a twitch of his eye, and a scratch of his ear
I knew that St. Nick gave me nothing to fear.

I stepped into the light and said, “Hi!” with a smile,
And we sat down together to talk for a while.
He told me his troubles with machines and his elves.
Emergency repairs made with no parts on the shelves.

When he finished relieving himself of his worry,
He sprang to his sleigh, in the new falling flurry.
But I heard him exclaim, as he flew into the night,
“Merry Christmas, Mechanic! Have a wonderful night!”

Pipefitter Works So Hard That His Ass Actually Drags

"I Felt Something Tugging Me As I Walked to the Locker Room"

Mike Birchfield works at a local power plant as a shift pipefitter. During a recent maintenance outage, he was scheduled to work eleven 12-hour shifts in a row, doing a major overhaul on one of the boilers.

As the outage was nearing completion, the pressure was on to complete dozens of add-on work orders, as no planning or scheduling is done at the plant. Mike was exhausted, and was not feeling quite right.

"I can remember this funny feeling that I was moving in slow motion. It seemed like everyplace I went, I was having trouble getting around, getting stuck in tight spaces, knocking over things and stumbling.", said Birchfield from his hospital bed.

Birchfield made it to the end of his shift, and walked back to the locker room to shower and dress for the ride home. It was then that he realized that something was seriously wrong with him.

"People were pointing, and their mouths were hanging open. I looked behind me, and there on the floor was something I never expected, my own ass!", explained Mr. Birchfield.

This extremely rare medical deformity called worksohardima dragginass, brought on by excessive labor and stress, afflicting only 1 in 500 million people, and has not been seen in the United States since 2 farmers from Indiana came down with the ailment after putting up hay for the winter in 120 degree heat during the summer of 1947.

Mike is expected to make a full recovery, but will require extensive physical therapy to regain full use of his ass. Donations to help the Birchfield family defray medical expenses for Mike's care can be sent to the local hospital, care of "Save Mike's Ass Fund".