Shredding Frustration

I've been shredding old papers, class papers, personal stuff from the last 25 years. It turned out that I had numerous boxes of stuff. So it was piling up as I was making my way through it.

But shredding, unless you have one of those semi truck shredders, is a tough business. The little bucket quickly fills up. And my particular shredder has something wrong with it, so it doesn't turn off between things being shredded. Also it works well for about 10 minutes then overheats and turns off.

I was down to the last box, a heaping box, on this last go-round, and it was slow going, with all the emptying and the overheating. It's enough to make me want to tear my hair out and shred it.

So when it came to the last half of the last box, I just started grabbing stuff that wasn't too personal -- and even some that was -- and was ripping it in half and fourths and putting it in a recycling bag. There's no Social Security numbers on any of it, I'm pretty sure, or other account numbers. Just old documents from my ever-lengthening past. If anyone feels the need to root through it and put them back together to read my business, I guess I'm willing to take that risk. There's nothing terribly interesting in there!

There was of course some old bank statements, car registrations, crap like that, which I set aside and shredded. The shredder appreciates a smaller load. I really need some humongous shredder, one that goes into a basket the size of a stand-up copier. And one that shreds with enough force to handle a stack an inch thick.

These dainty shredders you get at Walmart -- they're great for a few things, but they're terrible for the big job.