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Bell Maker. Mike heads to the McShane Bell Foundry, founded in 1856. While making bells may not seem like a dirty job (think about those white gloves handling shiny bells around the holidays), the raw materials are most definitely dirty. To start with, they take sand and horse poo, which is used to line the mold where the molten metal is poured. It doesn't get much dirtier than working poo with your bare hands. To be fair, it isn't a lot of poo, but it's the thought that counts. That's just the start, however.

Once the metal cools (which does take a while, Mike has to wait for that, so he uses other bells), the bell has to be polished. Alternatively, older bells may need to be refurbished, because let's face it - a bell in a tower is likely to attract all sorts of birds, and birds aren't the cleanest of animals (see Pigeon-Poop Cleaner-Upper during the Pig Farmer episode for evidence of this).

A good part of the McShane business is actually maintenance, and you might wonder what sort of maintenance there is for a bell. Well, it appears that 150 years of bell making makes for a lucrative sort of income if you play your cards right. At some point during all those years, a number of these installations had electronic ringers installed, so instead of a dongle ringing back and forth, it's a little pneumatic thingie that needs adjusting each year. Sounds like a good business if you can get into it. And if you don't get caught when the bells go off, which is just what happens to Mike and his cohort from McShane. Whoops!

Zinc Anode Changer. This is actually one of the jobs that I'm not sure if I could do or not. The problem isn't actually the dirt, as it may not be that bad. Of course, my set doesn't have smell-o-vision, so I can't say that for certain. It might be horrible. But the problem is the fact that doing the job is in some pretty cramped quarters. You see, the Zinc Anode is a plate of zinc that is charged to attract particles that will otherwise rust out a massive hurricane barrier in Connecticut. There are about 500 of them in this particular installation. That isn't the problem.

The problem is that you have to crawl in, through and around these chambers - 16 on each level and 6 levels deep - to get at them all, spraying the muck out of the way. The hurricane barrier normally lies on the bottom of the river, but every once in a while (I didn't catch that - once a year, I think) they pull it up, spray out the muck and check the anodes. Those that need replacing are those that are at or below 50% of their size. So this veritable team of rangers (park rangers, not Army rangers) attacks this barrier, and replacing they go.

To get at all of these plates, they have to crawl through some very tiny openings, and while I don't quite have claustrophobia, it's something that might get to me. So I could see not being able to do this particular job. Kudos to Mike for getting in there and getting it done. He even managed to replace one himself.