If you know me, you are aware I don’t like stuff. In particular I don’t like piles of papers – although putting random bills, junk mail, statements, receipts, catalogs, and holiday cards into stacks does make the ownership of pressed pulp more bearable. Despite the intensity of this loathing, I will let one, two, and even three piles accumulate over months as I try to decide what is the best termination method for them. A habit of shredding unwanted sheets, pages, and envelopes of the aforementioned, moments after I receive them and deem them unwanted, has never materialized despite having owned two perfectly good shredders. Apartments with fireplaces are ideal for this dilemma, though they are few and far between in the city of Manhattan. Putting out a large bag of paper-recycling leaves me all kinds of uncomfortable, because it must sit on a NYC curb for a day or so, free for all manner of hoodlums and scoundrels that pass it on their way to cock-fights and other alleyway shenanigans. Sometimes I’ll load my beater with a couple of bags and seek out one of the more hidden dumpsters in Brooklyn to rid myself of papers that these types might use for some of the following: mock my ATM habits, condemn my choice in cheap, but stylish furniture catalogs, insinuate I have a problem with Diet Coke after viewing a Walgreens’ receipt, or taking the one or two photos I might have tossed, from my less-than-handsome days, to scan and paste somewhere for the entire world. Truth is, I don’t have much to hide outside of the usually identity information lots of companies would like me to pay to protect. Even so, when we left our last apartment I made sure to trash the things I didn’t want see in three separate bags that I set out at three separate times, and at three separate locations. I’m a lot of things: paranoid, a waster of gas and plastic bags, the former owner of two perfectly good shredders – but at least I’m not lazy.