Mark wanted to dump a load of beauty bark on top of a garden at the bottom half of our property. Our property is along a hill with no road access to the lower end. Rather than using the wheel barrel to haul down the beauty bark, he decided to drive it down with our small truck.
 
It turns out our hill is mostly sand. It has a thin layer of topsoil to support the grass. Below that it's fine sand. As the truck drove up the hill, the grass gave way. The truck tires dug into the sand. The truck got stuck.
 
We first tried to use the big truck to tow the small truck up. This didn't work. The big truck couldn't maneuver through the trees to a location wide enough that towing was possible.
 
RO called in three tow truck companies. All of them declined to help after seeing the situation. "I think my truck would get stuck." one driver declared.
 
We tried putting rocks and lumber under the tires.  We got into many heated arguments over how to rescue the truck.
 
For two weeks the little truck was stuck in the yard.
 
Then, it occurred to RO that if we had about 200 feet of good wire cable, then that would be enough cable to run from the little truck at the bottom of the hill, to the road on the other side of the hill. Then we could do a long distance tow of the truck.
 
Begrudgingly I went to a hardware store to buy that much cable. I saw that the really strong cable was about a dollar a foot. Sigh. I picked up a whole spool, 250ft, of the cable. Expensive!
 
I brought the spool to the cashier. She scanned the bar code, did a double take, then scanned the bar code again. She turned to me at said "That will be $1.10"   She didn't realize the spool was 250 units, not one.
 
I realized her mistake almost immediately. I forced my face to stay calm. I felt a little guilty. I handed over my $1.10.
 
The little truck was successfully towed up the hill.