Great 365 Day Purge - Day Six

January 6, 2014

Day Six of "The Great 2014 Purge."

And since I am authorized to shred, today I shred an box full of index cards: Some are snippets of dialogue I've overheard and recorded over the years. Some are descriptions of characters. Still others are plot notes for a story I was writing.

I also shred an old passport from a college trip to Europe, a passport I thought I'd lost.

I shred cards from my bridal and baby showers; yellowed newspaper clippings; my final high school transcript.

I shred my high school graduation announcement; the program from my college commencement; three of my wedding invitations and one of my sister's, the twenty-five cent stamp neatly affixed upside down on the response envelope.

I shred two expired driver's licenses and an advertisement for a failed cleaning business a friend and I started.

I shred the results from some standardized test. A certificate of completion for a high school driver education course. The 8th grade occupational interest test, on which I reported I wished to be a nurse and showed no interest in writing.

I recycle the school newspaper that shows my class rank. The other newspaper that shares the senior confessions, in which I admit to, among other things, filling the soap dispenser in the boy's bathroom with mustard.

I pull out a folded sheet of paper--a xeroxed copy of the cover of the April, 1999 Business Month. This issue of the magazine featured the top "100 women to watch in corporate America." Beaming from the cover were thirty successful women. As a college senior, I found this magazine inspiring: I wanted to become one of the top hundred women to watch in corporate America.

And it was quite a simple thing to do. It was easy for me become one of the top hundred women to watch in corporate America. All it took was an X-Acto knife, some tape, and my high school graduation photograph, neatly cut down to size.

I set the doctored magazine beside my father's chair, where he would see it when he came in from the barn for the evening. Dad wasn't fooled. But my classmates were. For a few brief moments, I enjoyed being one of the top hundred women to watch in corporate America. I enjoyed the lecture from one of the boys, who admonished me for my boastfulness. But then, my professor laughed and the moment was gone.

I was back to being just Kelly.

I take one last look at the cover and run it through the shredder.

Kelly Garriott Waite on Google+