Last week, in the runup to Thanksgiving, I undertook an evil little job: insulating between the basement joists with fiberglass batts.

No doubt many of you have been there, too, especially in this era of expensive oil. You buy those pressurized packages of batts that look like giant flu caplets; wrestle them down narrow winding stairs, maybe catching them on the edge of an old storm window; and watch in horror as the bag explodes in a mass of itchy pink tentacles, accompanied by a sweet blast of formaldehyde.

You gear up for the campaign by donning the clammy mask and gloves, the long sleeves and goggles, perhaps even wearing a paper painter’s hat backwards, hoodlum-style, so you can get your face right up in the work.

You measure and cut the batts, then weave them through webs of Romex, copper pipe, radiator pipe, coolant pipe, gas pipe, oil pipe, dryer duct, framing blocking, doorbell wire, telephone wire, alarm wire – not to mention generation upon generation of abandoned hooks, nails, screws, and rusty pipe supports.

You deal with joist bays that are too small, too wide, or too packed with utilities, and accessible only by climbing on the oil tank, or into the old soapstone utility sink, or onto the ankle-snapping pile of firewood. You hang in mid-air, arms hooked like an escapee from a Barrel of Monkeys, balanced on a stepstool, trying desperately to avoid ancient pipe insulation that looks both friable and carcinogenic.

You use those clever sharpened wires to hold up the batts, pressing them into the joist bay until they flex like the Gateway Arch, their ends biting into the sides of joists. At which point, you discover how well they trap fingers, too.

You catch your breath and wipe the sweat and condensation from your goggles, noting, with the bitterness of adulthood, the cruel similarity of pink fiberglass and cotton candy.

But perhaps you’ve never partnered up with Messrs. Owings and Corning for this diabolical dance.

Working with fiberglass is bad, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the worst overhead work I ever did: a week up on a ladder, in the extreme heat of summer, sanding the rafters of a timber frame with a gargantuan old Rockwell Delta belt sander. I couldn’t see what I was doing. There was no choice but to lose the safety goggles and squint into the eye-pecking blizzard of sawdust. Also, my arms were too puny for the belt sander. And the ladder was rickety. And the shrieking belt sander was never more than a foot or so from my ears, which rang for weeks.

Not a good job. But there have been many, many others, each one a winner in its own miserable category.

Such as, for Best Supporting Gross-out in the Pursuit of Hantavirus, cleaning out a pantry overrun with mice. Including one hardy little fellow who’d made himself so comfortable in a bag of grass seed that he scarcely bothered to lift his little paws so I could vacuum under them.

Or, for Technical Achievement in the Shortening of Human Lifespan, scrubbing giant silk screens at a sign-making shop, using barrels of gonad-wasting chemicals like acetone and tolulene.

Of course, if you take the worst job you can think of, and add to it the terror of people shooting at you, then you’re talking about an entirely new dimension of misery. Which is why I’m extremely thankful that none of my “Dirty Jobs” has been undertaken in the face of enemy fire.

Come to think of it, there are so many horrible things you might be doing at any given moment, maybe it’s not so bad to sit down to an abundant holiday meal with people who — while they may be hypercritical, overbearing, boorish, ideologically unsound, thick, petty, mean, unfunny, or prone to bringing up embarrassing personal details as a form of public humiliation — at least aren’t trying to shoot you.

In most cases.

I’d even venture to say that Thanksgiving dinner with most families – my own included – are often downright pleasant.

But if things do take a turn for the worse, it’s helpful to have prepared a mantra. Think of the worst job you’ve ever done, then close your eyes, and silently repeat: “At least I’m not [fill in the blank]-ing.”

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving!

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 25 November 2010

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com