A Little Ingenuity and a Bit of Strength

It had been a rainy day; the parking lot was wet.  The sky was cloudy, but what could be better than to go outside and play soccer with my sister and her friend?   Well, actually there is probably many other things that I could have done.  But anyway, back on topic.  While kicking the ball around, I foot-launched it as high as I could.  Unfortunately, it got stuck on the top of the garage behind the snow rail.

This is taken from my parents' bathroom window (I know, a very weird place to take a photo from)
and gives you a picture of the size of the garage. 

That golden thing is my soccer ball.  How in the world am I going to get it down from there?

First Attempt
So, with three people out there, this shouldn't be too hard to get down, right?  Wrong.  Well, not at first.  Abi and I first used a somewhat wobbly ladder.   I definitely was not comfortable standing on that ladder, waving a large stick in an attempt to jab the ball loose.  So, first attack on the Walls of Troy failed epicly.

Second Attempt
My second attempt on the wall was to ascend into the garage  and stretch out through the window you see below and to the left of my soccer ball.  Hanging half your body out of a window and crooking your arm so as to get past the gutter in order to poke at the ball is not fun.  And it failed.

Third Attempt
Let's see.  What can we do now?  Ahhh.  Throw rocks at it, and hope that they won't fly over the roof and hit some old lady walking down the street!  Sounds like a great idea.  Finally, I had to call a halt to the throwing of rocks because I just couldn't risk it any more.   Our next idea was to try my sling shot with hopes of a more precise hit.  But, apparently, after years of inactivity, I slung about as accurately as I threw. 

Fourth and Final Attempt
I was desperate now.  It was now about 9:15 in the evening, and we had lost a third of our forces (Abi's friend had to go inside.  Apparently, some people still have school!)  Abi and I finally concocted a plan that left every other attempt in the dust.  We remembered that we  had about twenty-five feet of rope in the garage.  We decided to tie a stick to it and toss the stick up onto the roof.  Once we had it up there, we would pull it along the roof until it made contact with the ball, knocking it off the roof.  Finally, with much difficulty, we had the stick in place ... and we pulled.  Crrrraaaack ...the stick split on the snow rail.  Though fearful of damaging the rail, I gave it one more big tug and brought the ball down.  Happy in our success, we didn't notice that the stick was still up there.

A few more minutes of tugging brought the stick to the ground.  It worked.  But, alas, the stick did not survive.

But, hey look on the bright side.  With a little ingenuity and strength,
you can get any soccer ball down from your garage!