Early Morning Wash Job

For work yesterday the Roster Gods granted me the pleasure of having to do a 4am Excavator wash. It's been ages since I've been rostered on to do one of those – I tend to get stuck elsewhere doing other things and miss out on all the fun.

And it is fun.

Alright, you get shit all over you. It's freezing at this time of year and you're pressure blasting with water – which means that you will be standing outside in a long sleeved shirt with two jackets over the top, two bright white sperm suits over that, both of their little white hoods up over your beanie adorned head and a hardhat on top. Looking like a slow moving marshmallow. And you will still be freezing. After three hours solid of pressure blasting, you will also be saturated even through all those layers.

But...

You're using a gun with 4000psi behind it. They're easy to hold when you're used to them, but there's still a kick that will send a beginner backwards. You get up there in the dark and carve away at the grease and mud covering this huge machine and work your way toward the dawn.

I had chunks of mud an inch thick and the size of a man's shoe blasting off the top of this machine in the path of my water gun. All around me there was destruction caused by me, and only me. Oh, therapy. It was brilliant. After the destruction and debris is blasted off the side and into the dark the machine emerges as clean, shiny, and - of course – overwhelmingly orange.

Somewhere near the end of all this comes the other bonus of the shift... Dawn. I love seeing the sky change shade by shade as I'm working. It comes as a surprise every time. I look up from my destructive path for a second and realise There's a tinge of blue to go with those stars now and it makes me smile. It carries with it this indescribable burst of energy and wonderment mixed together. It's exciting. It gives me this wonderful feeling of awe at the way the world works.

It also means I can see any bits I've missed before we hand the machine back to the service crew.

It's crap, it's dirty, it's freezing, and it has the remarkable property of reminding me that it's great to be alive.