Over the years, this has been a useful skill, usually applied when I'd rather not be upside down or backwards.

On Friday, I proved once again that I can't drive backwards using the car's backup camera. I proved this by backing just a little bit off the side of my road when I'm certain my camera said I was driving straight down the center.

In my defense, with a bit more playing at backing up with the camera I discovered that it lies. The lines that show where you're going only update when the wheel is turned a lot, not when you're angled "just a little". So I was heading to the side of the road while the camera was assuring me I was going straight down the center.

Once I hit the loose snow and the ditch, it was all over.

Luckily, I have a come-along. A come-along is a fine demonstration of the simple machines. It's a ratcheted steel wheel about 2 inches in diameter attached to a 2 foot long handle. This provides a mechanical advantage of roughly 12 to 1 as you pull the handle to turn the smaller wheel. The smaller wheel is equipped with a length of 1/4 diameter steel cable and a hook to attach to anything you want to move.

A 12-1 mechanical advantage means I can exert close to 1000 pounds of pull.

So, I hooked the steel cable to the tow hook under my car, unwrapped the wire across the road to the nearest tree, and, of course, came up short.

Which is where my long chunk of 1/2 inch nylon rope and knowing how to tie knots under less than ideal circumstances comes in.

I did not have to tie the double-half-hitch upside down or backwards, but I did have to wade through the bushes and tie it while wearing gloves.

One thousand pounds of pull sounds like a lot until you're trying to pull a two thousand pound car up a steep bank.

But, once the cable was as tight as I could manage, I could put the car into drive and it would move.

It would move about two inches. Driving the car just a little bit out of the ditch took the slack off the nice tight cable, and without that thousand pounds of pull; ice, snow and incline asserted their dominance.

So, I climbed out of the car, yanked the lever some more, crawled back into the car and drive another two inches.

I played this game for about an hour, and finally got the car back onto the road.