ah, the lengths you'll go to...

I am stubborn.

Really stubborn.

If it can be fixed, accomplished, recovered...if it is at all possible, I will not be content leaving it undone. Like the broken cabinet in our kitchen tonight. I would have been up all night if need be, unable to rest until the darn thing was fixed. Thankfully, it took me about five minutes. The storm drain, however, was a different story.

It was dark when Karen and I decided to play catch with the football in our friend's cul de sac. As Murphy would have willed it, the very first missed catch (which accompanied the very first throw) left us watching the ball slide through the one open space under the curb and into the storm drain. A deep, concrete storm drain running a couple hundred yards to a nearby pond. Most people would have thought, "Well, I'll be buying Brent a new ball tomorrow."

But I am stubborn. And so is Karen.

We tried the rescue first from the pond side, crawling deep into the concrete tunnel, until something flew in Karen's face and we retreated as quickly as one can retreat on hands and knees in a cramped tube of concrete. We tried that a few times, actually, hunkering down and trying to avoid the narrow stream of slime left over from recent rains. It was adventurous and hilarious, but less than successful.


In the end, it was Karen who showed us that someone really can crawl through the side of a curb. She slid into the drain from the street side, rescued the ball, and was pulled back out alive.



Honestly, I was relieved by this, as I really wasn't looking forward to crawling back up that tube for a hundred yards- which I would have done if necessary, but probably would have hated.

Main lesson learned from the day: Don't drop your football in a storm drain. But if you do, don't go buy a new one. Because in the end, crawling up a storm drain (a relatively dry one, at least)for a little way is pretty fun. Stupid, but fun.