Sharon Miller, a prominent architect, was designing a beautiful stone porch for her personal home. During the process, she made many changes to the design and materials. At one point, she ordered enough shale to build the structure, which she paid for in full at the time, only to realize upon delivery that the stones were just too wide for her intricate design.

So, she put a tarp over the pallets, went back to the quarry, and select significantly costlier marble. Her plan was to buy on credit and hope that an upcoming job would pay enough to cover the cost. But after the train to her new worksite left the station, she got a message that her credit app for the marble had been rejected.

And so it was that later, as Ms. Miller rode the rails, that her porch, at first quite costly, used the wider, paid-off shale.