27. Faced Failure

Yesterday I helped with a Habitat for Humanity house build. We were framing and roofing the house. Somehow the man in change Dave decided that my friend and I would be good at nailing the beam supports for the roof. (I later was told that this was the hardest job.) I had to stand up high on a latter and nail a metal support into the wood. One support required ten nails. I had to nail it straight on, from the left at an awkward angle, and from the right at an awkward angle, all while balancing on the latter. I greatly failed in this assignment. I could not for the life of me get at least two of the ten nails securely hammered all the way in. They would end up going at a diagonal and i would eventually have to just nail it down sideways and find another nail and try again. At one point one support took me thirty minutes.