The other day here at Le House de Halfasstic I walked into Henrietta’s room to find her going through her rolling cart of tricks, “cleaning it out“, as it were.  She was meticulously tearing up all forms of paper that she was throwing away.  I know this because half of it was all over the floor.  Millions of tiny little pieces of paper.  I have seen her do this before and it is obviously something she makes a habit of doing every. single. time.

So I approach her about it.

“Hey, Henrietta! Whatcha doin’?

“Oh, I’m just cleaning out my papers.  I just have so much stuff in here!”

This is clearly true as she keeps every letter, greeting card, bill and  bits of junk mail that are addressed to her, because she “might need it”.  She informs me of this current undertaking as she is shredding yet another piece of paper into tiny pieces.

I gesture to the litter on the floor and in the trash can and ask why she’s tearing it up.

“Oh, you have to be careful or they’ll read it!”

“Who?”

“You know!” She leans in conspiratorially, “Those trash men!”

“Do you really think the trash men are interested in your Christmas cards?”

I think she is feeling a little silly about it at this point and says, “Well, I guess there’s nothing they can’t see in there…”

And this is the way I got her to agree to stop tearing up all the paper into tiny pieces and dropping half of it on the floor around the trash bin.

One of my few wins that happened with no argument from her.

The nut.