Tuesday, our day set aside for Family Home Evening (because Jared works 8-8 at the Urgent Care on Mondays), we thought it would be fun to have a fire in the fireplace. That's all I needed--just something to take the edge off the chill in the air.
As I was helping Cooper's little friend Andrew (who is staying with us for a week while his parents are in Hawaii) get settled in, Jared prepped the fireplace with Jake's assistance. As I walked back through to the family room I heard Jared say to Jake, slightly annoyed, "That would have been nice to know before now." Apparently, Jake had informed Jared that he accidentally kicked a soccer ball into the chimney in the spring and thought it might be important to know before the fire was started. However, in Jake's defense, he said he told me way back when it happened and once he said so, I vaguely have a recollection of something like that lurking in the musty corners of my brain. I guess I didn't think it was all that important in the month of April but I am surprised I didn't say anything to Jared about it. Makes me wonder what the priority was at the time! Needless to say, no fire for us Tuesday night. And Jake went to bed wondering if his precious savings was going to be majorly depleted when we said he might have to pay to have the ball rescued.
Jared and I were even more stunned that Jake managed to kick a soccer ball INTO the chimney. The chimney itself isn't all that high. 15...18 feet maybe? Jake's kicked, thrown and hit stuff on the roof before.
But this is what's so amazing and moderately frustrating...the opening of the chimney is just barely big enough for a soccer ball to squeeze through.
Talk about execution. Though I know full well Jake wasn't aiming for the chimney opening. In his words, "I was just kicking the ball and it happened to be accurate!" Sounds like 90% pure dumb luck more than anything else. But still! I can't stop rolling my eyes at the odds.
I broke down Wednesday afternoon and turned the furnace on for the first time this fall. I was hoping it wouldn't be til October or a little later, but at that point, I really didn't care about setting any records.
And now we have a "chim-chim-in-ey, chim-chim-in-ey, chim chim cher-ee" chimney sweeper coming in a couple weeks to get that blasted soccer ball out of there! Oh and Jake's savings has been spared. We told him to consider this his warning. Any more "accurate accidents" and he's footin' the bill!
5 comments:
too funny....you may want to put a screen on top of the chimney. It'll hold out soccer balls and unwanted critters. My sister gets birds every year in hers and i have heard that the bats will hang around too!
This will be one of those fun memories some day!
That is hysterical. (To those of us who don't have to pay the chimney sweep....) :)
Oh well, it is probably worth it to get it cleaned out anyways, who knows how much creosote has built up in there. Too bad it is always the bad that we are "lucky" to have happen :)
I love that story! The other day Tanner came to me and said that I was going to be really mad and needed to come downstairs. Knowing myself I asked him to just tell me what happened. He was 'tossing' something to Connor and cracked the window. I told him they would be paying for it, but now after reading your story I will let them off with a warning--you are so much nicer than me! What I will say is how impressed I am that Tanner came and sought me out to tell me about it.
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