I finally got it, Dave finally got it

I bought a used Toyota Matrix about 3 months ago. This vehicle was in a major car accident where the back end was completely bashed in. Some friends of mine who rebuild cars, professionally, bought this car with a salvage title and fixed it up. The advantage to buying a vehicle this way was that I got it for $5,000 less than what it retails for; the disadvantage is that you run the risk that the people who put it together might lose or drop a tool in a unreachable little hole. By unreachable, I mean you have to take apart the whole back end of the car, which had to be done to find this widget that was rolling around.

Dave came up to visit from Louisiana during Thanksgiving break. While he was here I made it our/my goal to find whatever it was that was rolling around in the back of my car and get it out. We took apart the trunk area to find that the noise was coming from underneath a metal piece, connected to the frame, with holes in it about every 6 inches. There was no way to reach the “noise” without sliding it closer to one of the holes and scooping it out with a screwdriver, so we set out to get it closer to one of the holes. Well, it just so happens that the roads were a little icy so we did a little “rallying”. I was doing everything I could to get the “noise” to move so Dave could scoop it out, including wippin’ dids, power slides, donuts, even slamming on the breaks. In the meantime, Dave was in the torn apart backseat, pushing his legs against the doors trying to hold his ground, snagging at the “noise” with needle nose pliers as it rolled by and holding a flashlight. After about 15 mins, Dave pulled out a 2/3 socket. We were both really happy.