In my last post, I mentioned my paper shredder and a dime. I now have an update.
The device was an Amazon purchase from their everyday product line and is over five years old. The machine worked well for what I needed to do with it, which was mostly destroying personal information on junk mail, or doing away with old copies of monthly bills from a decade ago. The endless piles of old mail are something most children of early Boomers can relate to; our parents or grandparents never threw anything out, so if you were to ask them how much monthly electricity cost in 1969, they could pull the actual bill out and show as well as tell you.
Well, nobody has asked me how much the gas or electric bill cost in 2021, let alone 1969, so I’ve been slowly working through the ancient paperwork a few sheets at a time. If you’re familiar with operating shredders, you know that they tend to overheat after a certain period of use, so they need to take a break and cool down. This means going off to do something else until that little “I’m overheated” light goes off and the shredder is ready to go another round.
When construction workers need to take a break to cool down, they just look all hot and sweaty, with no indicator button, and you can hang around to watch them. But I digress.
Did it just get warm in here, or is that just me?
The machine started to show signs of slowing down despite my efforts to keep the gears lubricated and the number of sheets per use below the recommended guidelines. At one point, I accidentally threw too much at the poor thing, and it seized up. I unplugged it and cleaned it out, but it never was the same. I was down to one sheet at a time, and then it took about twenty seconds to complete the job. I needed a new shredder.
I went out and got one from Staples’ everyday product line, and I went full out for this version. This baby could obliterate government secrets in a flash, and in half the time of the old Methuselah.
Strangely, the old codger machine kept on chugging, so I kept using it. Until I recently made a big mistake and killed the shredder.
The March of Dimes tends to send an actual legal tender ten cent piece glued to the reply slip, hoping you will send a donation. These are brand new dimes, obviously never circulated. I never understood why they didn’t simply stop sending the dimes and using those expenses for the research they want us to donate for, but apparently the psychology of guilt-based philanthropy is of more importance. Not only will you send dollars more than the dime, but you will pay the post office an extra $73 to forward the donation to them.
Except I was in the middle of holiday preparations and forgot to remove the dime and its dollop of adhesive before trying to run it through the shredder. I was promptly punished for my failure to give to those less fortunate by hearing the choked distress call of the shredder as the dime became jammed in the works.
I figured it was over for old Betsy. Until I stopped and took stock of the situation. There was a little round seal over a hole in the shredder’s main component which read something like “warranty void if broken.” The seal had broken itself a couple of years into its life. I figured nobody has ever come after me for removing the tag from my mattress, so the rebel in me prompted a retrieval mission.
Yes, I took a screwdriver to the main machine, removed the screws and separated the cover, resulting in a shower of paper bits and–voila!–the missing dime. Its edge was dissected so that a flange stuck up while the rest bent backward. Yours truly then went to my late father’s work corner, grabbed that little dime in a pair of pliers and hammered it back into shape with a good old ball peen from the toolbox. That dime isn’t pristine anymore, and it probably would not work in any vending machine, but it should spend just fine. Oh and yes, I looked it up, and the mint no longer accepts broken money for replacement, so my DIY job should suffice.
Look at me go, all like a farrier and stuff. Except I didn’t work up a sweat, and nobody would watch me while I cooled down.
So I put the shredder back together, and it seems to run much better now that I’ve cleared more of the detritus from its gears. Seems I will now have two shredders, which should last me long enough to rid myself of the last of the paper trail.
Those everyday product lines don’t cost a dime a dozen, after all.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 