A 'Shred' of truth perhaps?

My cluttered desk at work had long been crying for attention.

So a caving-in me decided to clean up my (desk) act today.

Taking a deep breath, I made a half-hearted dive into the large pile of paper that had accumulated over the better part of the last two months, and which had clearly been shrieking their lungs out at me.

Several minutes later, at first dazed by the volume of paper that stood accusingly in front of me, I had bundled them all neatly into three piles – important, not so important (but still to be retained), and to-be-shredded. Depositing the first two piles safely in my commodious work-drawer, I heaved the last to the gleaming white shredder that still hummed happily on account of a colleague’s presentation that had to be re-worded to suit a manager's whimsical mood.

I inserted a part of my bundle into it; the machine greedily sucked in the paper. Its appetite was insatiable – lapping up paper after paper gleefully.

The analogy to some people with insatiable appetites was unmistakable.

Ironically, the machine that was invented with the intention to protect one’s privacy, resembles those people most who love to intrude into yours. Your privacy, I mean. You answer one irreverent question with an equally irreverent answer, hoping it would shut them up. Fat chance! By some twisted, dim-witted logic, they take your answering for encouragement – and then follows that grueling episode of being subjected to the Scotland-Yard-meets-NYPD rigorous cross-questioning round. The string of questions that these Nosy Parkers pose even infringes into your time with your loved ones – leaving you sore, frowning, crotchety, and not really the sunniest sunflower in the garden.

There are those who, like shredders, insist on ‘destroying’ all around them – such souls destroy all sanity, sanctity, felicity in their relationships, making the sorry bum who’s in a relationship with them, look up at the star-studded sky, hoping to wish upon a shooting star…

Sometimes the humming sound of a shredder is almost like that of that person who whines (to you) in that utterly-wretched bleat about the meaninglessness of his /her life, and who insists on your complete, undivided attention while narrating sotto voce about the many troubles that plague them.

Such people moan, groan, drone.

The works.

That one time when you clicked your tongue in sympathy listening to the ‘plagued’ soul, now costs you aplenty, ‘cos he / she now adeptly downloads troubles into your (un)willing ears. The icing on the cake – by some cruel hand of fate, they could be from some quarter of someone dear to you. So while the ‘moaning’ experience is a cathartic one for them, you are plainly itching to do some serious acupuncture damage to some part of their body.

And when such people take on the form of creepy, lousy, thick-skinned and thick-headed, semi-educated, wannabe clones, who make you want to wish that you had taken that weekend course in anger management and / or how to cope with imbeciles, what can I say but…

Tie those shoelaces, and brace yourself for the 100-meter sprint.

A run with higher stakes.

'Cos at the end of it, it is not a ribboned medal that would be your prize.

But peace of mind.

Amen.