The Logic of Path-Dependence

Our Dog has been getting up in years and in some ways this has become a pain.  For instance, she used to be able to jump up onto our bed and would do so a few times/night.  The problem was that she would insist on being helped-up multiple times per night.

So I thought, why not build her a set of stairs?  The risk was that I would put a lot of work and materials into something solid, like plywood and then she would refuse to use it.  My solution was to mock-up something with cardboard, since there are always a few boxes that we need to get rid-of in the basement.

This worked! She would use the mocked-up stairs. After time, I noticed that her claws were denting the material and due to nature of cardboard, she would slip.  It was only a matter of a couple of wipe-outs and she would become afraid to use it.

Now, we had been working on some flooring projects in both 2nd floor bathrooms and if you know anything about the process, it involves many iterations of thin-set cement/mortar.  I took to applying skim coats of left-over cement to the cardboard.  My initial goals were to give her better traction, protect the surface from her claws and add a bit of stabilizing mass.  In successive coats, I started using old window screen material to reinforce, first 90 degree angles and later, whole planes.

Finally, it has felt on the bottom, so you can slide the, now pretty heavy, thing around and it is strong enough to support my 155 lbs.  I even painted it with some 20 year old paint, which was somehow still good.

This was all done about a month ago--around the time all the kids got home from their various colleges for the holidays.  I had just used these stairs to reach a bug on the ceiling and indicated to my wife--who had asked for the bug to be dealt-with, "Considering all the work that went into these, why didn't I just make something out of wood?  It would have taken a lot less time and been stronger"?

She, unlike me, remembered and reminded me of the history of the project.

Sometimes you are stuck with what works rather than with what would have been the better solution.