I need a paperwork reduction act

    I sometimes feel like I am drowning in a sea of paper. Everywhere I turn there are pieces of paper that need to be dealt with. That doesn’t come as much of a surprise since I work at a newspaper. But that’s not the paper that is haunting me. It’s all the other paper in my life that comes in daily and has accumulated through the years.
    Life was so much simpler and uncluttered when I was young and carefree, but there was always the paper that needed to be dealt with. Open the mailbox and paper disguised as bills, lovely sales flyers, and assorted junk mail falls out. Go to a store and get a receipt. Buy something and it comes with a pile of papers – assembly instructions, limited warranty, all in five different languages. At least back then it was only my paper that needed to be handled. Add 40 years, a husband and five children, and you are looking at a problem.
    I learned early on how to deal with mail. Only touch it once, pulling out bills and placing them where they need to go to be paid and throwing away junk mail that isn’t needed. Back in the day there was the occasional letter or card that you could sit, read and save, but those are few and far between anymore.
    I have saved a box with letters my son Dean sent me when he was in the Navy. Those letters are precious to me, as they were sent during a time when he was first leaving our nest and on his way to becoming a man. They don’t take up much space and perhaps some day his daughters or grandchildren will want to read them. Definitely worth saving.
    A drawer holds sympathy cards we received when Larry’s mother passed away. Still another holds birthday and Mother’s Day cards my kids made me through the years. Then there is the big box that holds papers from my kids’ school years – assorted report cards, special projects, poetry books – pieces of their past they will cherish someday.
    These things in themselves don’t take up much space, but add to it all of the papers that come with life today and it can be overwhelming. Toss in a husband who thinks every piece of paper needs to be saved and we now have a problem. I am drowing in paper. Where is the paperwork reduction act when I need it?
    It seems everything we do anymore includes papers that need to be signed and copies that need to be retained. But for how long? Sure, the IRS wants you to hang on to necessary receipts and such for four years... or is that seven? Warranties need to be held onto until the item bites the dust. Unfortunately the paper usually lasts longer than the item it represents. And how about those cash register receipts we are supposed to keep? Most of the time they fade away before the one-year limited warranty is up. So you make a copy of the receipt and keep it attached to the original and now you have two pieces of paper to keep up with.
    When the kids move out, they don’t take their paper with them. They leave it with you to store, protect, or whatever until you die. Then they get all mad at you because you left all that paper for them to wade through to find the important stuff, ie, the will and insurance policies.
    Take five kids and multiply that times five sets of important papers. We have birth certificates, birth registrations, immunization records, baptism certificates, confirmation certificates, Social Security information, high school diplomas, 8th grade diplomas, drivers license certificates, and that is just some of them. I have tried to pass them on to their owners, but they usually tell me to keep them so they will be safe. Sigh.
    In the beginning days of my marriage, Larry would write notes at work on little pieces of paper and bring them home and leave them laying all over the house. In my innocence, after a week or so I would throw them away, just thinking if they were important he wouldn’t leave them lying around. After about a dozen “where’s that piece of paper I had laying on the table,” I got it. They were important, at least to him and I needed to keep them. So I would stack them all together and put them next to his bed. And they would stay there. Forever! But just the time I would think I could sneakily throw them away, it never failed he would ask me if I had seen the paper with (fill in the blank) on it. I would try to look innocent all the while thinking, “crap, I just threw that away! After sitting there for 3 million years and he never looked at it, now he wants it.”
    The same thing happens when I throw away an owner’s manual for some old appliance. Lo and behold, within a day or two it breaks and Honey will ask for the paperwork to see if he can fix it and dang it I just stinking threw it away! It’s like I am cursed.
    So the piles grow, the little slips of paper that grow into stacks that evolve into piles that we shove into boxes and drawers, always afraid that just when we finally get up enough nerve to toss them away and do it, no sooner than we do it, we will find that we needed them. The IRS will need a receipt, my husband will decide it contains the combination to his safe, the child will need it for a school project, it will be the most important phone number in the world that can’t be found anywhere else!!! And then, the madness and mess just goes on. Paper, it is just a curse. So at the local drive-thru when they ask if I want my receipt I have to hold back the mad yell and sweetly say no, thanks! In my little world, at least it is a start.