In this case, the specific error was:
```
$ git pull
error: unable to unlink old 'sites/default/default.settings.php': Permission denied
```
I opened the sites directory and saw the following:
```
$ lll
rwxr-xr-x noxlady staff 160 B Tue Sep 4 13:34:39 2018 M? all/
r-xr-xr-x noxlady staff 192 B Tue Sep 4 13:40:49 2018 ✓ default/
rw-r--r-- noxlady staff 904 B Tue Sep 4 13:34:38 2018 ✓ README.txt
rw-r--r-- noxlady staff 2 KiB Tue Sep 4 13:34:39 2018 ✓ example.sites.php
```
So I don't have write permissions for the "default" directory...
```
$ chmod 755 default
```
And now I see:
```
$ lll
rwxr-xr-x noxlady staff 160 B Tue Sep 4 13:34:39 2018 M? all/
rwxr-xr-x noxlady staff 192 B Tue Sep 4 13:40:49 2018 ✓ default/
rw-r--r-- noxlady staff 904 B Tue Sep 4 13:34:38 2018 ✓ README.txt
rw-r--r-- noxlady staff 2 KiB Tue Sep 4 13:34:39 2018 ✓ example.sites.php
```
Alas, the failed git pull left a whole bunch of clutter in my folder, so I need to `git reset --hard HEAD` and `git clean -f -d` to clear out all the changes...
**Now** I can `git pull` successfully!