The Tom Sawyer Technique

Of all of the books that I read under duress back in high school but appreciate having a dim remembrance of today, Tom Sawyer has to be in the top five. Not coincidentally, I had a part in the school play of the same name. It wasn't much of a part, mind you. I didn't have a single line (as I remember it) - my sole function as Dr. Robinson was to be murdered by Injun Joe. At least it was a nice, soft piece of Styrofoam that he hit me with; on a public school budget, there wasn't much money for good special effects. A real rock would have been cheaper.

The reason I bring up Tom Sawyer is that one of the things from the story that has stuck with me the most is the way he tricked the other kids into whitewashing the fence his Aunt Polly wanted painted. You know what's just like that?

Riveting.

As much as I'd like to include installing nutplates in my attempts to fool other people to do work for me, the person has not yet been born that is naive enough to believe that to be any fun at all.

Riveting is much easier, though, because the pneumatic rivet puller is such a cool gadget. PfwuhhhhPOOSH! PfwuhhhhPOOSH! And before you know it, the job is done.

It's sad, in a way, that the only job I can easily foist onto the unsuspecting is one I actually enjoy myself. Life's cruel ironies can be trying at times.

Tonight it was riveting the floors onto the underlying rib structures. As with most large riveting jobs, it's the payoff to a long series of mundane tasks. And, as with all large riveting jobs, it is worth the effort of hauling the parts out to the hangar to use the air riveter. Tonight was no different, and had the added bonus of a new helper: Co-pilot Egg's boyfriend Lucas. I took then out to the hangar, pulled a couple of instructional rivets myself, and turned them loose.









My only mistake was telling Co-pilot Egg that she was pulling the rivets right where my tender behind would someday be sitting. I caught her trying to leave one rivet un-pulled. Man, that would have hurt to sit one!

I had a little more time available to finish up the job, but...

Nutplates.

Amazing how quickly my helpers disappeared.