Shred this

Telecasters, gnarly waves and skateboards are just a few of things the word shred applies to. But this past weekend, I decided to finally get off my fat yet supple ass and go shred classic: documents.

The IRS, those friendly government folk who have their hands in your paycheck every two weeks, suggest keeping your tax returns forever, and the backup documents and receipts for seven years before getting rid of them.

Well, never let it be said I can’t take direction. In the cabinets above my son’s closet were accordian files and boxes filled with receipts for every year going back to 1995, and actual tax returns going back even further.

You do the math. Never mind, I’ll do it for you. That’s 26 years and then some.

It was a chore I’d been putting off, because frankly every time I’d look at my little personal shredder I could see it trying really hard not to make eye contact with me. It was like it was in the front row at an improv show when they were asking for volunteers.

Also, it never could’ve handled it. The motor overheats after about five minutes of straight shredding, and the tiny bin fills up fast and has to be emptied over and over and over.

After sorting out what I was going to keep—the most recent ten years worth—I decided to have the rest of it one and done by calling a professional shredding company. A quick search on Yelp, and I landed on PFS Shredding. In a word, they were awesome.

The truck you see above pulled up to the house. Immediately all the neighbors started wondering what secrets I had that were so important I had to hire a professional to do my shredding. I imagine the international spy theories were flying fast and furious—something I'm accustomed to given how similar Daniel Craig and I are built.

Or maybe they thought I was part of the last administration, just tiding up the paper trail before leaving the White House.

Anyway, my new best friend Mark, who owns PFS, rolled that trash bin up to my front door, and I emptied my boxes and folders full of papers into it. He rolled it back to the truck, where it was lifted and dumped into the shredder.

There’s a camera inside the truck, and I got to watch all my documents being shredded on that screen to the left of the bin elevator. I can’t adequately express the thrill of see decades of papers turned into confetti so fast. 26 years of documents were shredded in three minutes.

Also, PFS was out to my house within two hours of my call. So yes, the minute he left I wrote him a stellar Yelp review.

Now I’m on a complete tear. Every piece of paper and receipt I don’t need from now on is going into a box, and when I have enough I’m calling Mark again and having him bring his big old confetti making truck back.

It'll give the neighbors something to look forward to.