Les Bonnes Choses

My goodness, April is almost finished. That means I still have tomorrow to file my Canadian taxes. I must say, the only thing better than having to do your taxes once per year, is having to do it twice.

That was sarcasm, in case you didn't notice.

In going through my documents in preparation for filing my taxes, I came across a decent pile of old tax-related papers that no longer needed to be kept. I decided to do the prudent thing, which was bury them in the park behind my house in a lead-lined box rigged with a cyanide canister.

That's what I decided, anyways. However it turned out to be much less feasible than simply shredding the whole mess of papers. Unfortunately, despite the relative infrequency with which I use it, my paper shredder has decided to show its age. It has three settings: off, reverse and automatic. Off is self-explanatory. The reverse setting is intended to remedy a paper jam. The automatic setting causes the shredding blades to rotate when an infra-red sensor detects that some paper has been inserted. I think the sensor is shot, as the other day the shredder failed to respond when I inserted a small stack of bank statements. I jiggled it, hoping in vain that, like a dim fish, wriggling bait would cause it to bite. I gave up, leaving the stack of paper in the slot. In the middle of the night, I almost peed the bed when I was startled awake by the sound of the shredder spontaneously shredding the bills. Though groggy, I had the presence of mind not to bother hunting around the house for an intruder: compulsive document shredding seemed an unlikely motivation for a home invasion. Even if it was a home invasion, an intruder who began by shredding old bank statements rather than ransacking the house for alcohol would probably be an interesting person to talk to.

I turned to google this evening to see if anyone else had solved the problem of a faulty paper detector. One industrious priest took apart his shredder and shorted the sensor wires so that it always signaled that paper was detected. It seemed like an interesting project, but before I could find a screwdriver, I had a flash of lazy insight. The shredder now sits inverted on its basket, and works like a charm on the 'reverse' setting.