There is something frightenly grown up about buying a paper shredder. I'm not exactly sure what it is though. Something to do with the concept of not only having, but also being concerned with, documents that you would rather others not read. Which is entirely the part that brings the frightening to play.
It is not like this ordeal with sensitive documents just jumped out and bit me. Its been here for quite sometime. Somewhere around that first credit card I think. Or perhaps it was the University, with the piles upon piles of documents and papers to be signed. The whole don't share your student ID with anyone, but could everyone please put it onto your assignments next to your name so we know who you are thing. (Run sentence Run!) I might be able to pin this on the government too, what with the paper storm that follows the shroud of taxes. But I'm just not fully sure when that actually started.
It is all the number of things that identify you by number, and solely by that number. Such that anyone with that number can be for all practical purposes you. So things become a race to destroy the numbers before someone else can read them. So we get a paper shredder, and hope that no one has a roll of clear tape and enough patience to assemble the shreds.
That and after a day the waste basket it came with is almost full. Even
after compacting it a few times. I'm quite sure that about half of that
did not need to be shredded. Its just that, well, its fun to stick
paper in the shredder. There is the massive growling noise and the way
the paper ‘quivers’ as it is devoured. Its just fun to
watch. ^_^