EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

The Life I Love Is The One I Led All Along

August 13, 2026—Middletown Springs, Vermont (Home)

Today the bank called about my finances. At some point during the conversation, they asked what I planned to change about my life. Did I want to buy another house? Maybe a boat? Was there something large I had been waiting to purchase now that I could afford it?

I told them no. I want my life to stay exactly the same because the life I love is the one I led all along.

People seem to assume that having more money should make a person want a different life. A larger house. Another property. A boat. Something expensive enough to prove that you could afford it.

I already have the life I wanted. Apparently, what I wanted today was Chipotle.

After the call, I decided that I could afford lunch there. This seemed like a considerably more reasonable financial decision than buying a boat. I decided to live a little and ordered steak with guacamole and extra cheddar cheese.

On the way home, I stopped at Market 32 in West Rutland and picked up food for dinner. While I was there, I noticed that the shopping plaza parking lot had finally been repaved.

Amelia complained about that parking lot for years. She moved to New York. Vermont roads and parking lots not being paved was one of her reasons for moving. She moved. They immediately repaved it. Of course they did.

At seven this evening, I attended a municipal meeting across the street at Green Mountain Timber Frames, my neighbor’s barn. During the meeting, I installed a Meshtastic node in the loft and configured it.

There are sentences that would sound strange almost anywhere else. In Middletown Springs, apparently, this is municipal government.

The town recently learned that Meshtastic nodes can also be equipped with GPS hardware. This changed the project considerably because the nodes can relay messages through the mesh while also allowing town employees to see where municipal vehicles and equipment are located in real time.

The town has requested that nodes be installed on all of the vehicles and equipment.

There is one person in town who has wanted nothing to do with the mesh project. He has been quite outspoken about it. I am leaving his name out because his identity is not important.

I asked what seemed like an obvious question.

“Surely the town trucks and equipment have a battery to start them?”

Of course they do.

I pointed out that I could connect a small node to a battery behind a fuse and satisfy the power requirement without much difficulty, and that this would be out of the way.

The town explained that power was not the actual problem. He would remove the node if it was anywhere near his work areas.

In my head, I saw myself slam both hands onto the table, jump to my feet, point across the room, and announce:

“CHALLENGE FUCKING ACCEPTED!”

Instead, I said, “I’ll figure something out.”

A few minutes later, I asked another question.

“Are the roofs metal?”

They are.

My current plan is to build a small solar-powered node with a magnetic mount. I can make the enclosure compact, weatherproof it, color-match it to the surface with spray paint, and seal it with high-gloss clear coat. The ideal placement for the antenna is on the roof anyway, so I will incorporate that into the design.

I get an interesting engineering problem. If someone deliberately removes town equipment after the town has decided that it belongs there because they consider the roof part of their work area, that eventually becomes a problem for someone other than the engineer.”

The town also owns a tractor approximately the same size as mine. Therefore, my tractor clearly needs a node. I have already selected the name.

CRAZY-EMILY-JOHN-DEERE-TRACTOR-01

The 01 is important. It implies inventory.

After the meeting, Trevor and one of his friends came across the street to see what is affectionately referred to as Crazy Emily’s House.

They walked in, and I immediately showed them my desk, where I design most of my ideas.

Then I showed them the makerspace in my living room, where I build them.

Then my bedroom, where a surprising number of ideas begin and eventually end up written in notebooks.

Finally, I took them downstairs to the server room.

At some point, Trevor asked about the bigger ideas.

I said, “Let me get my keys.”

We went outside to the garage, where I am slowly setting up my own shop. If it is too large for the living room, I apparently get my keys.

Trevor asked about the electrical service in the garage.

I told him it is currently 100 amps, but I have been thinking about upgrading the garage to 200 amps. Eventually, I would love a pad-mounted transformer in the front yard supplying 400 amps, split 200 and 200 between the house and garage.

Trevor asked what I needed that much electricity for.

I told him I needed to run my one 50-amp welder, a boom box for music, and maybe a couple strands of Christmas lights.

One should always leave room for future expansion.

Most of my electrical-contracting tools and supplies are organized in tool boxes.

My Meshtastic equipment and electronic components are also organized in tool boxes.

The active project area is less disciplined. A typical project layout consists of springs, clips, and webbing left over as detritus from the previous project, a NEMA box, wire, USB or fiber cables, a Meshtastic T-Beam Supreme, and Coke Classic.

There is also almost always some part I need for the mower attachment on the tractor that will linger in a tool box that has nothing to do with the mower.

Not the tractor itself. The tractor has an engine, hydraulics, electrical systems, a drivetrain, a PTO, steering, and a gazillion moving parts. Its manual is roughly the size of a Sears catalog. The tractor is flawless. The mower deck came with what amounts to four pages stapled together and an 800 number to order the handful of parts mentioned. Naturally, the mower deck always needs a fucking part.

The mower deck, which is comparatively one of the simplest fucking machines I own, always needs a part. The mower-deck parts have started multiplying. They used to occupy one box. Now some of them have migrated into nearby boxes and begun establishing themselves in previously uncharted territory.

I expect that eventually I will open something labeled ELECTRONICS and discover a mower pulley inside. This is how shops expand. Nobody officially assigns the space. Parts simply occupy it until their presence becomes established fact.

I think the next time the bank calls asking if I decided what I want or need, I will let them know that I still do not need another house, and I still do not care about a boat, but if they could source me an identical mower-deck that I can use for parts, I’ll take it.