Miss a step and you can end up a mile away.

That occurred to me Saturday, a day that defied the string of storms and frigid weather that has besieged us for the past three weekends. Finally, I would get the opportunity to repair the seawall stairs that were hammered by the storm preceding the blizzard. Fortunately, there wasn’t much to it. A stair needed to be replaced along with the braces nailed to wooden supports on either side. The three remaining stairs were in reasonable shape and didn’t need anything more than pounding home a few nails that had been worked free by the waves.

I laughed to myself looking at one of the stairs, reminding me that if you don’t abide by the sequence of some things you can end up in a place you don’t expect. In the last major overhaul of the stairs, I was determined to build a platform to withstand the severest of storms. The plan was to use 12 inch galvanized spikes to secure the treads. This would require drilling the planks and after positioning them driving the spikes home with a sledgehammer. The final step, lending an extra measure of security would be tacking them down with six-inch nail to the treads.

That was the plan.

It wasn’t a good one. Single spikes held the treads in place. But because the treads didn’t fully rest on the braces, tacking them down meant they would be slanted. There was no way to remove the spikes.

I was stuck. I was going slanted.

Some of that has been corrected over the years, but the stairs are crooked. It’s got character.

Then there was the matter of the note Carol left me at 3 a.m. Saturday on the kitchen counter wishing me a good morning. A nice thought. She was asleep when I awoke and crept out.

“Did you see the note?” she inquired when I returned mid-morning. I hadn’t. Turns out she had an early morning snack of peanut butter and the note was stuck to the bottom the jar. We laughed.

And perhaps that’s what led to the next miss step.

Carol was preparing to make a tuna melt for lunch as she related what happened.

Ollie was beside her with devoted attention as she removed the lids to two small cans and squeezed the meat of juice that went into his bowl. Beside his bowl was another she would mix the meat in with mayonnaise to be spread on slice of bread. The final step before grilling was a slice of American cheese.

Ollie watched every step. In went the mayo and Carol started mixing when she came to a sudden stop.

“I can’t believe what I just did.”

I couldn’t see anything. Nothing had dropped. She had opened tuna, not a small can of pineapple or something else. The pan was warming up on the burner. What could have happened?

She held up the bowl. She was mixing the contents in Ollie’s bowl, the one that rarely gets washed because he licks it clean. It looked like Ollie would make out.

Not quite. Carol started delicately transferring the contents into the mixing bowl. She was going to make her tuna melt no matter what, only this one, like the seawall stairs, had “character.”