100 Word Challenge: Patience

Every few years, our local library sponsors a “Shred-it Day.” You can bring all the household papers that you want destroyed free of charge. My household generates a lot of paper – bank statements, credit card bills, medical receipts, pay stubs – many, many pieces of paper.

Several weeks ago, I finally got the Mister to go through some file boxes full of such documents in anticipation of disposing of sensitive documents. We probably sifted through five or six cardboard file crates. Some pre-dated the 2000s.

The general rule of thumb is to only keep bank statement and the like no more than seven years, or until receipts are reconciled with your bank statements, so we were being more than prudent and needed to downsize.

Shred-it Day was finally upon me.

I’ve been to these events before and they are very popular and people will, and do, line up and wait hours to get rid of their paper trails. Last time I joined in the fun, I showed up less than 15 minutes after the start time and had to wend through a serpentine Disney-esque line for more than two hours. When a few drivers tried to cut line, it got ugly and I thought it would come to blows. I sat in my car happy to have brought snacks and a drink for the live show.

This time, I arrived 15 minutes early and was third in line. I was excited to not have to wait a long time, but I had packed lunch just in case.

The first women in line drove a van and appeared to have several boxes to shred. The women between that car and mine, exited her vehicle to add her meager half laundry basket of paper to the first woman’s bin.

The Shred-it guy was filling a large trash bin that he then loaded into the shredder.

Sweet… I was next, “let’s move this along.”

Nope, the first lady was a chatterer, talking up the Shred-it guy like they were long-lost family.

From my car I was fighting the urge to honk, “pick up your dates somewhere else!”

I am not a patient person nor, apparently, very nice.

I don’t know if First Woman got Shred-it Guy’s number or not but she finally got back in her van so we could all pull up.

I helped Shred-it Guy unpack boxes of paper from my SUV while he chided me about having Alltel bills in the mix. (Alltel merged with Verizon back in 2008. I’ll do the math… that’s an 11-year-old phone bill from a company that no longer exists.)

In this near-all-encompassing digital age, I’m moving toward keeping only e-receipts. I’ll still have to purge files periodically, but I won’t have to wait in line and yell at flirty shredders.

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

This week’s word is:

Patience

What to do:

Using “patience” for inspiration, write 100 Words – 100 exactly – no more, no less. You can either use the word – or any form of the word – as one of your 100, or it can be implied. Include a link in your post back here, and add your story to the Mister Linky list. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your submission in the comment section, or as a Facebook status post. Remember to keep spreading the love with supportive comments for your fellow Wordsters.