I used to work with this guy named Ken Berling. Ken was a kind of a quiet guy and worked as our maintenance director up at the summre camp I used to work at. As the maintainance man, he kept control over all of our materials, being the one to use them most, so I went to him when I needed to build some horseshoe backstops.

Now, constructing a backstop is a pretty simple matter: you need some boards of equal length and sufficient thickness to stop a heavy steel object while staying planted in the ground at the same time. I figured that constructing the stop out of 2x4s would do the trick, so I asked Ken to cut me up some 2x4s and to give me a cupful of 4 inch nails.

It wasn't until I had the backboard fully built that I realized that 2x4s aren't really 2 inches by four inches. I then had to go back and ask Ken for a prybar with which to remove the backstop from the picnic table it was now firmly attached to.

When I was there, I asked him "Why didn't you warn me about the 4-inch nails?"

"You seemed to know what you wanted," he replied.

Moral: When asking for nails, it might help to explain why.