Average Jane Shreds

I wish this post title referred to my virtuoso guitar soloing skills but, alas, I have no knack for stringed instruments.  No, I’m talking about shredding my junk mail, a task that I am beginning to resent more and more.

I spent about 30 minutes this morning shredding an armload of unwanted mail, mainly consisting of credit card and mortgage loan offers.  That was just what I’ve received in the last two weeks;  I have an enormous cardboard box and an overstuffed grocery sack full of other candidates for the shredder.

I estimate that about 5% of the mail I receive is actually of interest to me.  The other 95% sometimes overwhelms the bills, letters, cards, magazines and other items I actually want.  As I was shredding, I found the May/June issue of Archaeology magazine buried in the pile.  I have no idea when it arrived.

I’m in the habit of shredding at least the name and address portion of every piece of mail that arrives.  I used to keep the shredder in the kitchen so I could keep up with the mail every day.  Unfortunately, that got away from me fairly quickly, so now the shredder is up by my desk surrounded by its eventual victims.

I’m hoping to put a stop to some of the excess mail by using the Direct Mail Association’s Mail Preference Service.  Unfortunately, they have a finky policy of charging you $5 to register online (even though you’d think that would be cheaper for them in the long run), so I’m planning to register all our name/address combinations by mail instead. 

Maybe soon the shredder (me) can have a much-needed break.