^^ Nice analogy!
I can just say take off eveything that you can to get in to them! When I changed my sidelights, I endeed up taking off battery covers main light covers, blah, blah until I could squeeze my non-child-sized hands into the gaps to fit the bulbs! With broken skin and lots of swearing I managed it, even though at first glance I thought it would've been a bumper-off job.