Megan Stielstra's Blog

I’ve been going through the file cabinet. It’s one of those four-drawer metal office jobs as tall as me and it’s been years since I’ve cleared through it: the check stubs, the forms, contracts, old letters, rejection letters, photographs, bank statements, evaluations, stationary, floppy disks (?), bills bills bills, random writing, reviews, photocopies of essays and short stories given to me in grad school and other scary, long-dead things. This, of course, means a lengthy trip to Target for file folders, plastic garbage bags and ... and ... AND! a paper shredder.

I’ve never owned a paper shredder before.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’d like to take this moment to talk about doilies. Years ago, when I was a full-time waitress, I was restocking doilies—the lacy circles of paper between your soup bowl and the plate the soup bowl comes on—and I started reading the side of the box the doilies came in. It must’ve been a slow day. I must’ve had some time on my hands. I remember thinking, How many times have I restocked these doilies and I’ve never read the box? I’m so locked into my day-to-day routine that I’m missing all the things right under my nose! What else am I missing out on?

SOME EXCITING WAYS YOU CAN USE DOILIES!!!! said the box, followed by a long list of possibilities:

• For serving underneath soup or salad bowls

(I wanted to include the list, but I couldn’t remember anything besides For Serving Underneath Soup or Salad Bowls. Since I’m trying to prove a point here, I knew I needed more examples, so I went to google and typed in How to Use a Doily. This is how I discovered the Duchess of Doily, who offers us not only an entire HISTORY of doilies, but also comprehensive lists of the why, how and when to USE them, and also she has a hat which MATCHES her doilies and ALSO a fantastic VIDEO about doilies narrated by Ezra Eidenburger [and no, I didn’t make up that name but Oh, I wish I had!] and I now will shamelessly rip off her list thus giving the illusion that I actually remembered all the things you could do with a doily)

• Line a bread basket
• Accent a centerpiece
• Challenge children's imaginations
• Prevent or mask china scratches
• Protect table linens
• Make winter snowflakes

And on and on, some thirty doily-related possibilities listed on the side of this box, and then—THEN!—it said, in smaller print: IF YOU NEED MORE IDEAS ON HOW TO USE OUR DOILIES, PLEASE CALL OUR 1-800 NUMBER!!!!!!

People. I was bored. I was sitting alone in an empty brunch restaurant at eight o’clock in the morning and I was bored—the same set of circumstances under which the kid sets fire to the cat, or draws on the wallpaper with colored chalk. Of COURSE I’m going to call!

“Hi, this is Megan calling from the Bongo Room!” I said, my voice all sunshiny-happy as I tried to verbally replicate the multiple exclamation points on the doily box. “I was interested in different possible ways I can use your doilies!”

Silence.

“I just finished reading the list on the box, and I am SO! EXCITED!” I went on. “What other options can you suggest?!”

I recently turned thirty-one. Birthdays in your Thirties are times of great reflection, when you look back over past actions and realize how much of an asshole you’ve been: Missed opportunities. Lifetime regrets. Shameful treatment of people in the customer service industry.

“Well,” said a monotone voice on the other end of the line. “There are man-y ways you can use doil-ees. For serving underneath soup or sa-lad bowls. Or lining a bread basket. Or accenting a center.piece.” I tried to imagine the person on the other end of that voice: sitting in some cubicle, answering phones at a doily manufacturer, hating their life, one step away from the edge. Who knows what’ll send someone over the edge? A stupid, ridiculous twenty-year-old could CERTAINLY send someone over the edge!—and I gave up. Hung up. Went back to my coffee and crossword puzzle.

I’d forgotten this incident up until I got the paper shredder. Mine is one of those jobs that fits snugly over the trash basket, so you can just feed it the check stubs and old receipts, getting the oh-so satisfactory buzzing sound without the mess. MY friend Jeff told me a horror story of when he worked at a publishing house back in grad school: they would shred unsolicited, slush-pile manuscripts and use the shreds as PACKING MATERIAL. Novel and after novel sent through the shredder, thousands of pages of somebody's dreams. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard, but, as I send old letters and bank statements through the shredder, I am not sad, no, I am excited. I think, This is fun! What else can I shred!? Paper towels? Whole magazines? Dead leaves from our shedding plants? Mojo's dog treats? Washcloths? And I know someone will have to stop me, that I'm out of control, that this is another silly, wasteful way to kill time, time that needs me for a thousand different things and yet, powered by the same unseen force that dialed that doily's eight-hundred number, I am still shredding and shredding and shredding.