With a Whimper
I turned the doorknob of my apartment door to discover a very agitated cat and a loud mechanical roar I couldn't quite identify.
"Oh please tell me that's not my PC fan making that din!"
It wasn't, nor could it have been, unless perhaps the fan stopped turning and the PC case had begun revolving against the polished floor instead.
No, a cursory investigation soon made it clear that the sound was the paper shredder, which had grown nearly untouchably hot after having run continuously for what was probably at least a couple of hours.
I looked at the cat. He gazed up at me with an expression that seemed to say, "Oh please, for the love of all that's fishy, catnippy, or stringy, make the bad noise stop!"
I flipped the switch to the Off position. The shredder kept grinding away. I switched it to Reverse. It started grinding in the reverse direction. Off. Grind. On. Grind. Off. Grind. Reverse. Backwards grind.
I pulled the plug.
Silence.
The cat, true to his typically melodramatic demeanor, flopped onto the rug with an exhausted sigh.
Plugging the shredder back in, I found that the On and Off settings were still performing identical functions, but in this case identical functions of nothing at all. Oddly, Reverse still worked, and continues to work now, but I'm skeptical about the usefulness of a shredder which only unshreds things.
As luck would have it, I checked my receipt file, and I have receipts for my camera, my scanner, and a handful of other things I've purchased in the last couple of years, but it didn't occur to me that a shredder qualified as Goods at Risk of Needing To Be Returned.
Or maybe I was so excited about being able to shred receipts that the shredder receipt was the first thing I tried.
"Oh please tell me that's not my PC fan making that din!"
It wasn't, nor could it have been, unless perhaps the fan stopped turning and the PC case had begun revolving against the polished floor instead.
No, a cursory investigation soon made it clear that the sound was the paper shredder, which had grown nearly untouchably hot after having run continuously for what was probably at least a couple of hours.
I looked at the cat. He gazed up at me with an expression that seemed to say, "Oh please, for the love of all that's fishy, catnippy, or stringy, make the bad noise stop!"
I flipped the switch to the Off position. The shredder kept grinding away. I switched it to Reverse. It started grinding in the reverse direction. Off. Grind. On. Grind. Off. Grind. Reverse. Backwards grind.
I pulled the plug.
Silence.
The cat, true to his typically melodramatic demeanor, flopped onto the rug with an exhausted sigh.
Plugging the shredder back in, I found that the On and Off settings were still performing identical functions, but in this case identical functions of nothing at all. Oddly, Reverse still worked, and continues to work now, but I'm skeptical about the usefulness of a shredder which only unshreds things.
As luck would have it, I checked my receipt file, and I have receipts for my camera, my scanner, and a handful of other things I've purchased in the last couple of years, but it didn't occur to me that a shredder qualified as Goods at Risk of Needing To Be Returned.
Or maybe I was so excited about being able to shred receipts that the shredder receipt was the first thing I tried.