Farm slaughtering truck

In the essay "Bonanza," Jo describes her own cluelessness about the true purpose of Ralph's truck that he would take from farm to farm in order to slaughter livestock. Jo extrapolates from here to show that she was generally clueless about many things, saying, "I never figured out what was going on around me, when it was written on the walls in red" (7).

TV show "Bonanza"

On Jo's last, aborted visit to her grandma's and Ralph's house, she becomes extremely anxious and depressed while watching the TV show "Bonanza" with them in their living room. While watching the show, Jo is triggered into a spiral of negative thoughts about the emptiness of her grandparents' lives, saying: "It occurs to me that Grandma and Ralph have nothing, they don't even enjoy 'Bonanza' all that much, they just turned it on because my mom told them...