Sunday, January 15, 2023

The Day I Saved the Shredder

Up until this year, we had this paper shredder that jammed constantly. You might remember my hilarious post from 2014, "The Day I Killed the Shredder." 
 
How the tides have turned. This year, I saved the shredder. I bought a new and improved (and much more expensive) shredder for my husband, Dan, this Christmas.

I couldn't lift the box when it arrived at our door. I had to slide it from the porch all the way to the gift-hiding room. Consequently, I couldn't wrap it either because it was too heavy for me. I couldn't find a good place for it, so I scooted it behind a chair in the gift-hiding room. (Dan totally knows where I hide stuff now . . .)
 
 
I left it in the box and put a bow on it. That was the extent of my Christmas wrapping efforts this season. 

On Christmas morning, I told Dan to wait by the tree as I disappeared into my gift-hiding room to scoot the box into the living room.

"Do you need help in there?" Dan called to me. 
 
Apparently, my struggle was audible.

It was worth it. He was so excited about his gift. I guess I'm not the only one who loves office supplies around here.
 

 
"It really shreds!" he exclaimed after trying it out for the first time.
 
A few seconds later, he returned to tell me, "And you don't have to lift the heavy part to empty it."
 
Then a couple of minutes later, he announced, "Also, you can oil it with vegetable oil. You're supposed to do that once a month."
 
"Weird," I replied.
 

 
A few days after Christmas, I had a document to shred, and Dan suggested I trying shredding it all by myself.
 
"It's a better shredder than the last one, so even you won't jam it."
 
"Do I need to unfold the paper?" I asked Dan.
 
"It can shred up to 8 pages. It's okay to shred folded paper now."
 
"That's how I jammed the old one," I muttered under my breath, as I fed the paper through.
 
The shredder stayed on longer than we both expected.
 
"Did you jam it already?" Dan said in a brief moment of panic.
 

 
Then it stopped whirring. The paper was successfully shredded. 
 
These days, Dan plays with the shredder for fun. We don't really have that many documents to shred.
 
Occasionally, he will hand me a piece of paper and say, "You want to give it a try?"
 
"Oh, you trust me nowadays?" is my response. 

And then I shred the paper without any operator error.
 
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