The Woman Who Knew More Than She Thought
Chapter 157: The Great Walmart Tire Ballet
The big mission of the day was deceptively simple: rotate the tires on Don Don Van. A normal adult errand.
I should have known better.
I had already tried booking an appointment through the Walmart app, only to discover that apparently tire rotations exist in some mysterious administrative dimension inaccessible to technology. The app wouldn’t let me book it, nobody answered the phone, and eventually I decided to just show up.
As I pulled into the Auto Care Center, I spotted another Promaster 3500 already inside the workshop. Perfect. Proof of concept. I lined up behind it feeling oddly victorious.
A man came outside and gave Don Don Van one long look.
“I don’t think we can do it,” he said. “Your car is too big.”
I stared at him. Then pointed dramatically at the van inside.
“There is literally the same van in your garage right now.”
“No,” he said confidently, holding his hands about halfway apart. “That van is way smaller.”
Sir.
That is the exact same chassis.
At this point I genuinely wondered whether Don Don Van simply radiates “oversized” energy. Maybe it’s the color. Maybe he just has a dump truck aura.
Eventually the guy relented and told me to go talk to the front desk. Inside, the employee barely looked up before booking me in immediately. No concern about the van size whatsoever. I asked how much it would cost.
“I can’t tell you,” he replied.
What do you MEAN you can’t tell me.
This whole interaction felt less like customer service and more like participating in a low-budget social experiment.
An hour later I got the text saying the van was ready. The total came to exactly what the website said it would: $20. I mentioned I was a Walmart+ member and without answering yes or no, the guy silently gave me 10% off.
So the grand mystery price became… $18.
Wonderful.
That evening, Nelson and I were leaving the gym when suddenly the tire pressure warning light came on.
I just stared at the dashboard in silence.
The thing about cargo vans is that the front and rear tires require different pressures. The technicians had apparently rotated the tires without adjusting the air properly afterward.
So yes. Tomorrow morning I got to return to my favorite cinematic universe: Walmart Auto Care.
Chapter 158: Trust Issues, Foundation Walls, and Miranda Priestly
I returned to Walmart the next morning already emotionally exhausted before 9am.
This time, however, I was greeted by the human equivalent of a motivational podcast. A super cheerful young woman bounced over and happily declared:
“No problem! I’m sure it’s just a computer recalibration issue!”
Excuse me WHAT.
“No no no,” I said, panic rising instantly. “This is not a computer issue. The tires literally need different air pressures.”
She smiled confidently.
“The computer just needs to relearn the STUFF.”
The STUFF.
It is never comforting when you know more about your vehicle than the garage employee standing in front of you. That’s the sort of realization that makes your soul briefly leave your body.
Thankfully, another technician came over... ironically the exact same man who previously declared my van too enormous for civilization, and this time he actually helped properly inflate and deflate the tires. Monday energy had apparently left his system.
Feeling liberated from Walmart forever (hopefully), I drove to Rogers for groceries and furniture browsing, because apparently I am now the type of woman who casually looks at dining chairs for a house still mostly composed of concrete trenches.
Back at Blowing Springs, I chatted with fellow campground residents Bill and Becky, who were also building a home in Bella Vista. They always seemed incredibly knowledgeable about construction and inspections and permits and all the things I still approached with the nervousness of a child holding an expensive wine glass.
That evening by their campfire, I complained about a new POA construction fee. Bill and Becky immediately assured me that because our permit process began before the effective date, we should qualify for the old pricing.
I became instantly euphoric.
The next morning I excitedly texted Brody from our builder company. He contacted the POA and returned with devastating news: absolutely not. Everyone pays the new fee.
Confused, I went to ask Becky if she remembered who told them otherwise.
The conversation derailed so aggressively it honestly deserved an award.
Within two minutes we had somehow moved from permit fees to:
- her sleeping badly,
- her builder being in Pennsylvania,
- her first husband currently being in prison for murder,
- her second husband being her best friend,
- and whether Nelson was my first husband.
Ma’am.
I just wanted clarification on a utility fee.
The entire interaction left me reflecting on something uncomfortable about myself. In areas where I’m experienced: work, strategy, managing chaos - I trust my instincts immediately. But with newer things like vans, construction, or fly tying, my default assumption is always that everyone else knows more than me.
And yet… over the last year, I’ve learned so much.
I know how Don Don Van works. I know about tire pressures and water pumps and electrical hookups. I understand more construction terminology every week. I ask questions until things make sense. I research everything obsessively.
Some people speak confidently because they genuinely know things.
Others just enjoy sounding knowledgeable.
And somewhere between Walmart Auto Care and Murder Husband Storytime, I realized I need to trust myself more.
That realization also made me appreciate Brody and Dewayne even more. They never oversold anything. Never bluffed. Always communicated clearly. In an era where everybody seems to improvise expertise loudly, their honesty felt rare and deeply reassuring.
Later that afternoon I visited our construction site again. The foundation walls were nearly complete now, and Dewayne explained the next steps involving backfilling, slabs, and I-joists.
I-JOISTS.
Look at me casually understanding house terms now.
Somewhere along the way, I became a person who actually knows things.
That realization hit especially hard because that same morning, my phone exploded with messages from former coworkers.
“Miranda” was gone.
Not literally, obviously. But the CEO from my old company, the woman I always compared to Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada... had apparently been pushed out by the client.
The office was in chaos. People were crying. There would be a new CEO.
And suddenly all these memories came rushing back.
The Friday 5pm emails designed to ruin your weekend.
The 4am messages followed by 5am follow-ups asking why nobody had responded yet.
The permanent state of anxiety.
The way everyone walked around like prey animals.
Once, after receiving one particularly nasty email, I got on a train up the Hudson Valley and hiked alone through six inches of snow just because physical danger somehow felt easier than emotional exhaustion.
That job changed me in ways I didn’t fully understand until I left.
For years I worked in environments where confidence belonged to the loudest, harshest, most relentless people in the room. You survived by doubting yourself before someone else could do it for you.
And now here I was... living in a van in the South, arguing with Walmart about tire pressure, learning how to build a house and tie trout flies... slowly rebuilding trust in my own judgement.
I actually felt a little sorry for Miranda. She worked twenty hours a day, smoked constantly, answered emails at impossible hours, and built her entire identity around being indispensable.
Meanwhile I was spending my afternoons examining foundation walls and getting excited about feathers... life's funny that way :-)
Chapter 159: Hair Donations, Fish Nerds, and Quiet Futures
Friday’s task was delivering a notarized “Right of Way Easement” form to the electric company so they could eventually install power on our property.
The amount of ceremony surrounding this piece of paper was astonishing.
Both Nelson and I had to sign it. We had to get it notarized. I physically had to hand-deliver it to the power company office. The building itself had a resort-style beautiful lawn. Inside, a woman took the form, wished me a nice weekend, and that was it.
No receipt.
No confirmation.
No dramatic stamp.
Nothing.
After all that buildup.
I left feeling deeply suspicious they were immediately going to lose it.
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| Now this is the kind of lawn I want for my future house! |
That evening Nelson and I drove to Springfield for a rare weekend centered entirely around food instead of trout dissection. We had ramen at Karai and then headed to our beloved Cook's RV Park.
Of course he does.
The man was already too wholesome and now he’s out here quietly being a Disney character.
Cook’s RV also doubles as Nelson’s improvised barbershop because the bathrooms have excellent lighting. Unfortunately, midway through his haircut, a pack of teenage boys began repeatedly knocking on the bathroom door and causing chaos outside.
Nelson returned to the van looking deeply traumatized. Honestly it might finally be time for a professional barber? LOL
Saturday was wonderfully uneventful in the best possible way. No storms. No taxes. No fish guts. We spent most of the day inside the van just talking about life.
About vanlife.
About work.
About the house.
About what comes after the house.
Nothing was concrete. We still lived week-to-week in many ways. But there was something deeply comforting about sitting in our tiny moving home, dreaming out loud together.
That evening we went to Ariake and ordered all our favorite dishes. Afterwards we visited the American Museum of Fly Fishing inside Bass Pro.
The first time we visited months ago, I had tied exactly one fly in my life. Now I stood there examining Victorian salmon flies with genuine understanding, like some sort of deranged feather scholar. I became especially fascinated by a book called The Feather Thief, about a college student who stole hundreds of rare bird skins from a British museum because of fly-tying obsession.
A few months ago I would have found that story insane.
Now?
I found myself thinking:
“Well… the hackles WERE pretty beautiful.”
This is probably how it starts.
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| The fly says 'gimme a hug!' LOL |
On Sunday we visited Neosho National Fish Hatchery on the drive home. Unlike the trout hatcheries we usually visit, this one focused heavily on conservation and endangered species recovery. We wandered through exhibits about lake sturgeon and Missouri cave fish before feeding rainbow trout by hand.
Then we returned to the van and made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.
The combination... endangered fish conservation followed immediately by melted cheese in a parking lot, felt like a very accurate summary of our life right now.
A little chaotic.
A little nerdy.
A little uncertain.
But very, very good.
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