Patience

I never believed was a virtue until today. I know I said "sometimes babies just cry" but the fact that my little one just won't stop no matter what I do is really a slap in the face. I know damn well she hasn't napped enough today and it's just a sleep thing. But I try everything I can think of, and she's still just going off. Now she's sitting in her swing, where daddy puts her when he needs a break, and being a complete doll, and I'm feeling like a tool. Has she been telling me all day "put me in the swing"? Maybe I should add the damned swing to my list. Maybe I should toss the damned list out the window; it's led me astray today.

When I speak of patience, do I mean patience with the child or patience with myself? I'm supposed to be the one in charge; I'm supposed to be all things to this child, and here I am completely defeated. How totally inappropriate of me to assume this child is being anything but completely true to herself and me. If that is so, why do I need patience with her? I'm supposed to be the smart one, and she's not even 3 months old for fuck's sake. It's not like she can tell me "don't sweat it old man, we'll figure it out". I'm sitting here laughing at myself and this whole situation, in a "what a pathetic so-and-so" sort of way. Sometimes all that gets me through is me telling myself "I am an intelligent and resourceful human being". Sometimes I'm full of crap.

When I was an aircraft mechanic working in Virginia, I was performing what's called an annual inspection on a small single engine aircraft, I believe it was a Cessna 206. Kinda cookie cutter deal; I'd done a million of em. An annual is required by the FAA, and it's like a prostate exam. Nobody likes em even the guy doing it, but ya gotta do it. There are these things called Airworthiness Directives that are published by the FAA. They are documentation about a fault that someone found with some component of the aircraft, and reported. They're divided up into airframe, powerplant, and accessories categories. These Airworthiness Directives or "ADs" for short, are just that, directives. Meaning I MUST comply, or make sure they've all been complied with. So when I do an annual inspection or "annual" for short and sign it off, I'm saying that "I've complied with all applicable AD's and found this aircraft to be airworthy" and signed my name and a&p number (number assigned by the FAA to indicate my licensed status). So, you might be able to imagine if there are ADs for every aircraft out there in one category or another, that there are LOTS of ADs. There are. Thousands. Maybe even millions. The normal procedure would be to look in the airframe section, and look up my airframe by serial number, and see what applies. Do the same for the engine. The same for the propeller. The same for every. Component. On. Board. The accessories section covers everything that's not an airframe, or an engine. Seriously, how can I say I've checked them ALL? Well that's what I say, every time. The owner / pilot expects that of me and puts that trust in me. That's a trust I hold dear.

I signed the plane off, and off the guy went. A few days later, I heard he was dead. He crashed in the plane I signed off. He ran into some "IFR" conditions, and hammered it in somewhere out in Colorado. IFR means Instrument Flight Rules, or just inclement weather. Crappy weather. In his instrument panel was a device called an HSI or Horizontal Situation Indicator. The HSI is the main source of attitude and direction indication. I mean there are others, like an altimeter, airspeed indicator, compass, etc. There are "old school" instruments, but the HSI is a fancy backlit, really expensive doodad that is designed to replace those, or more accurately, make all those readings in one place. His flight plan, or communications with control towers along the way indicated he was using his HSI. So there I was, sitting in the Director of Maintenance's office, with the lead inspector, the owner of the company, and some serious looking dudes from the local FAA office going over my logbook entries with a fine tooth comb, "interviewing" (interrogating) me about the inspection and boring holes in me with their stares. I was told to "stay close" and that the inspection would take a few days, and "don't worry". Yeah. I'm cool as a cucumber alright.

A few LONG days later, everyone who should not have been there disappeared, and everything was back to normal. I went to work with a knot in my stomach, like I had been doing for almost a week, thinking I was going to be in jail at any moment, and everyone was all "'morning Pete... hay Pete wassup... howdy Pete". WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? I was almost insane at this point. The Director of Maintenance pulled a crazy me into his office and told me the feds were gone, I'm absolved of any sin and I'm just supposed to go on like it's a regular day. WHAT?!?. Yeah, all is well. They were here so long because of an AD. There was an AD on this guy's HSI that said "this unit is known to fail under these conditions" or something like that. The Director is telling me this, and I'm getting ready to pass out or throw up or maybe both. The AD listed that this was only applicable to a specific serial number range. The HSI in the Dead Man's plane was ONE NUMBER outside that range. Jesus. Talk about the skin of my teeth. If the equipment I signed off was deemed to be in the range of that AD, I would be negligent. I would lose my license and open myself to all sorts of legal issues. But all is well right? Yeah, sure.

I never even saw that AD. I missed it completely. If I'd have seen it, since the numbers were so close, would I have complied anyway? Maybe. Maybe not, I'll never know. None of this changes the fact that a guy was dead, and it was REAL CLOSE to my fault. He was a nice guy too, I met him when he brought the plane to me.

The patience I'm speaking of is hers with me.