Projects Gone Wrong: Deck Stairs

"I kneeled and combed the grass, asking myself: Why do they not make orange nails?"

"I should be finished before the storm," I told Lisa. "It'll be a quick project."
It wasn't and yet that was not the problem. The problem was the project itself: stairs leading from my deck to my lawn. In the end, they were too steep and too shallow.
Walking down them, I had visions of my toddler missing a step and face-planting onto the lawn. I saw my mother-in-law holding my newborn son and as they took what should have been a casual few steps onto the soft green grass, she trips and ... You get it.
I needed to tear down the steps and start again. It hurt. With slumped shoulders I sulked back into the house and accepted defeat. Tomorrow I would go to The Home Depot.

In Search of  Lost Nails

The day had started bad. As I worked at prying an old nail from the deck, the nail snapped and shot into the grass. I knew time was of the essence. If you do not find a dropped nail within the first 10 seconds of dropping it, you never will. It's true.
Because my eyes had failed to track the nail's trajectory, I had no idea where it landed. My son walks this path everyday and he hates wearing shoes. The word tetanus flashed red in my brain. I needed to find the nail.
I kneeled and combed the grass with my fingers, asking myself: Why do they not make orange nails? (Do they?) When this initial slightly-panicked search failed, I stepped back, took a breath and decided to take a new approach.
I would mimic the way searches are conducted on cop shows. I set up my perimeter: five feet out and five feet across. Then I imagined a grid and began to longitudinally rake my fingertips across the ground. I scanned the invisible grid line by line, finding nothing, not even a bug or worm. Just grass. Just dirt. And a broken piece of plastic.
By now I was 10 minutes in and my eyes began to zoom out and the green grass began to swish together like in a Van Gogh painting. I forced my eyes to focus. Attend to the details. Notice the water-drop on the tip of a grass blade. Look closely.
I worked it latitudinal. And nothing.
I stood up . A bug net wrapped my head. Tiny gnats had been dive-bombing my eyeballs and, like a Venus flytrap, my lashes shut on them, one after another. After having washed a few out with my tears, I resorted to the bug-net. Sweat had soaked the screen, sticking it to my face as the gnats climbed up and down trying to get at my eyeballs. I squinted at the grass.
"Shit."
I tried looking over the whole area in one long sweep, hoping to see a flicker of silver in the green; then I could move on and start the stairs.
Nothing.
My son would have to wear shoes indefinitely.

A Stairway to Nowhere

Slightly baffled and very sweaty, I soldier on.

I should have known that the steps would not be deep enough. When I pulled off the old steps, I noticed whoever built it had used a wider board than I had. Yet, I didn't want to buy new wood. I had a bunch in my woodpile. I soldiered on.
And you know how the story ends.
I don't want to suffer you with some cliche lesson I learned. There's a few in there and if you know what they are, please post.
I have yet to tear down the stairs and I have not found the nail.
So it goes.

Postscript: My son--who's a toddler--took the above photo. I'm impressed.