On major home additions and renovations, the general contractor has the major task of orchestrating the arrival of materials with the necessary sequence of sub contractors. Often one component of the renovation cannot begin until another is completed, even if the materials are available.

In the house where I nipped out all those staples from the floor, a subcontractor, Max, was working on staining and finishing a beautiful set of wooden stairs. The decorative wooden spheres that had been ordered for the end posts of the bannister had been sitting in the unfinished addition for a few days before this subcontractor arrived to install them.

Because they had been in a room under construction, the pieces had become dirty and needed to be cleaned before the stain could be applied. Max, who was the uncle of the teenage boy in the house, teasingly blamed his nephew for the fingerprints. Once the endpiece had been attached with a sticky new layer of stain, Max warned his nephew not to touch them.

"Adam," he winked, "You better not touch these balls with dirty hands again. And if you touch these balls now, you'll get sticky fingers and you'll have to wash up again."

Now I suppose that was good advice.