Friday, November 18, 2011

A Thanksgiving Shredder Story, or how not to be overfed

We were all preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday at the office. Some of us were sitting around the break-room talking about how much we would eat—overeat, in fact.

“Don’t you have the sense to stop yourself before you’re overfed? My shredder does.” This statement posed by Rhonda from HR whose slight figure indicated an expertise in not taking on more than she could chew, raised our curiosity.

We followed her back to her cubicle where she kept her shredder. “Imagine, this is Thanksgiving.” She began feeding paper into her shredder. Sheet after sheet she fed into the shredder.

“Imagine this is the turkey, the cranberry sauce, the mashed potatoes—eat, eat, eat. But it’s okay, because the green light on the shredder says that it’s okay to keep going.

“And then there is that point where you have too much on your plate, but you try to keep eating.”

She shoved a thick stack of papers into the mouth of the shredder. The shredder stopped. The green light turned to red. Rhonda easily removed the papers. The green light came back on.

“The light turns red to say that's too much-you're overfeeding me. It stops the paper jam before it starts,” Rhonda said.

The shredder knows it's about to be overfed and says no more.” Gus pondered, eating a bag of chips. “Can they make Jam Blocker for people?”