Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Shredding Documents

No, I'm not talking about what's going on in DC these days, as it usually does in the closing days of all administrations.

I'm talking about how I spent a lot of my weekend.

Sometimes... a lot of times... I can be a real pack rat. It's easier to toss things on the kitchen table, or counter, or in a drawer, than to deal with it "right now." Not bills, of course. I gave that up when I got sober. Those get paid right away.

But other things I think I "might" be interested in sometime... well... later.

Such as fliers from various theater companies in New York. I get inundated with those. Somebody put my name on a mailing list years ago and now I'm the darling of every producing group from The Public Theater to the Roundabout to the Manhattan Theater Club. If I had subscriptions to all of those I'd never spend a night at home for 9 months of the year.

But rather than just tossing them, something inside me says "take a look at this later... you might be interested." and it winds up gathering dust on a counter top for anywhere from a week to several decades.

Because I had an extended holiday weekend due to my medical appointments yesterday, and because gas has gotten so prohibitively expensive, I decided to spend a couple of hours a day going through all the crap that's accumulated over the last 7 years I've lived where I am now and to toss anything that was generic in nature and to shred anything that had my name printed on it. Oh, and to shred any documents older than my heart surgery.

Things were going great on Saturday and Sunday but by Monday morning my old Xerox wastepaper-basket sized shredder was definitely starting to slow down. Eventually, it just stopped.

I can't complain. It has given me five years of decent service (including CD's, dvd's, credit cards plus up to 10 sheets of all kinds of paper at a time). But it's now time for it to make the trip out to the curb and for a newer, younger, prettier sturdier model to take over.

I'm torn between the Fellowes or the housebrand for Staples.

If anybody has any suggestions for a nice, cross-cut shredder (which can do plastic, too), please pipe up.

Thankyew.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I’m interested in this topic, too. I know the next time I go to shred the pile of papers, it will kill the machine I have. I thought I had a nice, tidy, 6-inch high stack... until I cleared out the utility room yesterday and found two BOXES of stuff that needs to be shredded. Sigh.

JoyZeeBoy said...

Well, I get that alright.

Every time I think I have a handle on this whole "tidying up" thing another decade has slipped by and it's time to change the sheets, dust, do the dishes and vacuum again.