They called me crazy. They called me a psychopath. I have a paper shredder and I get immense enjoyment out of shredding everything in sight. They also called me a pyro when I burned a lot of the shreddings with great glee in hellfish. Who's laughing NOW Mister Society?! Wait — I guess I should rewind a bit.
Yesterday, I talked to a nice lady at the Costa Mesa Sanitary District who said that it was perfectly fine to leave, in addition to the city-issued trash cans, garbage in plastic bags–as long as they were heavy duty garbage bags containing no more than fifty pounds. Sure thing. I will take out the trash cans and the 15 or so garbage bags. About halfway through (why not earlier?!), we realized the 50 meter trek to the street would be sooooo much easier if we threw everything in Kate's car and drove it out to the street.
This morning, we wake up, do our daily routine of shoving crap in boxes and filling more garbage bags. This evening, when walking Kate to her car, we discover that most of the bags are still there. Not only that, but ALL of the remaining bags have been torn open, and a good number of them are spilling out into the street. It turns out the nice lady forgot to mention that there was a limit of four bags.
A big chunk of today consisted of NOT ONLY re-bagging trash that was strewn everywhere (“grody to the max, man”), but then carrying them back to the house (Kate and her car had left and I thought it was alright to exchange a little sweat for an unstained leather interior because my trunk will not even fit one bag).
So, anyway, psychopath. Yeah, so now I am thumbing my nose at those people who say that the paper shredder is excessive and not necessary. When taking trash out to the curb, no bag was light. They were all about a medium weight (medium by my own scale–I have a hard time estimating weight to specific numbers). When returning to the back yard, several of the bags were still relatively intact and did not spill anything, but were light as a feather and A LOT less full. It gives every appearance of stuff being stolen from the trash. With 20/20 hindsight, this makes perfect sense. The alley/complex/whatever has a sign out front (“2 bedroom for rent, call 800-xxx-xxxx”). There were a dozen trash bags out front. When people leave, they throw out all the crap they thought was important, but in retrospect is not as much so–including several years of financial data. Paycheck stubs often have a social security number and/or bank account number (for auto-deposit).
Anyway, I am using this whole event as a justification for the paper shredder. So there!
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