shreddin' aint easy

left - my wagon carrying 40 lbs of paper to be shredded
right - the poor lady who had to manually shred all 40 lbs of paper...but i honestly think it was more painful for me, having to sit and watch her shred all 40 lbs

my shredding pile was getting out of hand so i finally decided to do something about it today.  i normally take my stuff to the shred-ex truck which charges $5/box and is capable of shredding the entire box in a minute or less.  i'm not even kidding!  shred-ex has the craziest, industrial shredder known to mankind.  the thing sounds like an airplane and you dump the entire box into the the huge opening and it devours the paper in seconds. 

shred-ex is closed on the weekends but i was determined to get my stuff shredded TODAY so i called office max and office depot to see what they offered.  office max shreds for 79 cents/lb but the paper is dumped into a locked bin and then the shredding company comes on site weekly to shred whatever is in the bin.  office depot shreds for 99 cents/lb and it's done in-house while you watch and wait.  given my paranoid tendencies, i took my stuff to office depot.

my entire paper load filled up a shopping wagon and weighed 40 lbs!  i couldn't believe it.  i started getting cold feet about using their services when i realized they were about to charge me 4x what shred-ex would charge.  but i thought, i'm already here...just get it done.  and then the woman proceeded to shred my stuff...MANUALLY feeding the sheets into a machine that is basically an oversized version of the shredder i have at home.  it only accepted 10 sheets or less at a time!  i started freaking out.  i asked her how long it would take to which she said, "about 20 minutes."  it ended up taking over 45 FREAKIN MINUTES.  (i was actually timing how long it would take on my iphone but then my phone mysteriously died and i couldn't turn it back on*)

what a painful test of patience!  i will never stray from shred-ex again, even if it means driving around the island to find their shredding truck.  at least i got the lady to price match office max so i saved $8...and can now buy 4 double scoop cones at pillbox :)

* if you own an iphone and it suddenly shuts off, screen turns black and you can't get it to turn on again...hold the power and home buttons simultaneously for 10 seconds and then let go.  voila!  your phone should turn back on.  thank you google!!!