Alert-120

“Oh yeah, you’ll need to wear coveralls,” Hannah added. I was already one boot on. Begrudgingly, I untied my laces and stared at the bright orange coveralls. Apparently, this was the size Hannah usually wears, though she had said it is big on her. Monstrous on me then.

One thing about working up here is that all the provided gear besides my arctic outside wear is…very big. They call it ‘unisex’ but that’s a very clever way to disguise what we all know what it is. Men’s size.

From the men’s ‘small’ coveralls to the size 6 men’s rubber boots (size 8 women’s), and mechanic gloves that add an inch to my fingertips, everything I touch seems to be oversized. My head just barely clears the hood of the track truck.

I had a similar issue with the waders at Grundy Lake – all the waders in or close to my size were ripped so by the end of the season I either wore the size 8 neoprene waders an gave in to my fate of tripping every other step or wrapped my legs in duct tape to cover the multiple tears of the size 6 waders to no avail. The familiar words of, “Man, this would be so much easier if I just bought my own,” echoed in my mind.

I waddled after Hannah to the cold storage building, grease gun in hand. The rubber boots were slipping on the packed snow, and the 3 inches of space between the steel toe and my actual toes made it hard to keep up.

In the cold storage where we keep both of our track trucks, Hannah showed me how to properly keep them greased and functional. Each of the track mechanism has 8 nubs called ‘nipples’ that can be hooked onto the end of the grease gun to push the grease through to the central rotating mechanism. Only 4 of the 8 need to be greased with 2 along the exterior and 2 parallel on the interior. Hannah greased the first track and left to go get another grease cartridge – leaving me to grease the rest of the tracks solo.

The nubs on the front of the track were relatively easy, however, the 2 closer to the underbelly of the truck seemed to prove an issue. First, I tried sticking my arm through the machinery, but the awkward angle and rigidity of the grease gun tube made it impossible to click the inlet onto the nub. Next, I tried stretching my arm around the track, clicking the inlet on. Wait. How…how do I reach the grease gun trigger from here? Shit. Curse these small arms of mine.

I have leaned into the “short” remarks and have given some of the guys 2 pot shots at my height, but once they use them up, they’re done for my own sanity. I always feel a little embarrassed when I feel like I have to explain my shortcomings (no pun intended) due to my size whether it’s my own perception of my abilities or a reality. At this point, I feel like years of my own insecurity have resulted in me blaming my stature when I am not immediately successful with any physical-type task. “Oh, I don’t think I can do that because I am short or my arms are not long enough,” “Oh, this would be so much easier if I were tall,” It’s all a product of a lack of confidence in my own abilities.

Frustrated with my difficulty getting the back of the tracks greased, I compromised with myself. Let’s just grease the rest of the front ones and come back to the interior ones after. No point getting upset, after all, I was getting a little sick and tired of feeling like I can’t do shit.

Many of the jobs I’ve worked, I have been shown how to do things by someone who is of or above average height. They will perform the task how they usually do things and then tack on, “But, you’ll probably have to do something different,” like ah yes, thank you, so helpful. Obviously.

I stared at the back tracks. The tire wells made these the most difficult because my arms were not long enough to reach around, the metal edge blocked the only access site.

Something Different.

I’m going to have to crawl in, aren’t I?

Imagine the back of a track truck. Sandwiched in between the tire well and the dusty rubber tracks is me, in my bright orange glory, lurched over the top of the tracks with a grease gun at my side (also precariously balanced on the top of the track), and a greasy flashlight tucked under my chin. ‘Next time, I am bringing a headlamp,’ I thought as I struggled with the greasy gloves to get a grip on the inlet.

Working at Grundy Lake really helped with my confidence. I know I am not even that short in the grand scheme of things, but in conjunction with being a woman in a relatively male dominated field doing relatively male dominated tasks, it weighs on you. Driving (and successfully reverse parking) the pickup trucks, mastering the art of building turtle nesting boxes in the carpentry shop, wading through bogs and portaging canoes all made me feel so powerful. That job was a real breakthrough for me. Even though I feel great in Alert, I sometimes feel small in comparison to how I felt at Grundy.

I inched closer to the track, my body 2/3s of the way inside the tire well. The inlet clicked on. I reached back towards the grease gun and pressed the trigger, pale pink grease oozed through the central mechanism, pushing the old muddied brown grease out from the last greasing.

I shimmied out of my prison, whispering a quiet victory to myself before briefly thinking, ‘Man, that would have SUCKED if that started moving,’ but quickly pushed it out of my head before turning to the next track. A small spark of pride ignited in my chest.

By the end of the ordeal, my orange coveralls were dusted with a thick grey from my close embrace with the tracks, and my hands were sticky and stained from the black grease. I felt like an absolute badass.

Since I never really made any New Years Resolution, I think my goal for 2024 is to not fall back into an insecure pattern of thoughts regarding my abilities. I have shown myself time and time again that I am capable of doing everything anyone else can and more. After all, I bet tall people can’t crawl between the tracks. Something different for sure.

***

This has been sitting in my Notes app for a few weeks since I learned how to grease the tracks. I wanted to post it but wasn’t sure if it was too personal, but a friend reminded me that these entries are for myself to look back on at the end of the day to see how far I have come.

I recorded two videos of some vehicle maintenance a week ago, so I share the funny visual of me versus the track trucks maintenance.