03/19/2002 Entry: "Ground History."

Still sick, but I figure I might as well make this time as productive as I can while feeling this miserable. So I'm now onto the annual chore of filing all the paperwork from 2001 into the tin box (and auxillary shoe box) where it will spend the next seven years. Maybe it's overkill—the IRS only requires four years of records—but the papers just fit in the box; why disturb them?

The fun part is watching 1995 disintegrate before my eyes. I put on an appropriate soundtrack, cup of Theraflu at my side, and start the shredder.

There go all my pay stubs from Pasqua, the coffee chain I worked for that has since been acquired. There goes a check to City Clinic; a man I was seeing gave me a humongous bouquet of exotic flowers, and told me in the same breath that he might have given me Chlamydia. There goes the Back Door BBS and Five Star BBS, where I started out playing around online. There go rent checks at approximately half of what I pay now. A lot of ATM receipts. Those aren't so interesting.

Note: Operating the shredder while it isn't attached to the bucket is only potentially dangerous, but is assuredly messy. I think the antihistamine has kicked in.

There's the phone number of the woman who lived under our stairs for a while. The receipt for my black mesh shirt. A lot of receipts from Tower Records. All into my increasingly decrepit shredder. A check to Good Vibrations from when I talked a roommate into buying herself a toy. Yet more receipts from Tower Records. I assume there's more Tower receipts than grocery receipts because I usually paid cash for food. Right? Right. Into the shredder.

On the upside, I could probably keep your hampster happy for weeks with all this stuff. Call me if you need any.

Replies: One Comment

i do this too, but once every three months or so. it gives me such a feeling of warmth and pride, shredding away. god, that's sad, isn't it? i find all sorts of stuff that way, though. oh! there's that check i never cashed! too late now!

Posted by pj @ 03/19/2002 12:19 AM PST