CATHIE SHAFFER: A matter of record 1/19/10

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January 19, 2010

Anonymous The Daily Independent Tue Jan 19, 2010, 12:13 AM EST

I quit making New Year’s resolutions long ago, but I still feel the need to reform my life with the beginning of a new year.

Perhaps it’s the excitement of a fresh new calendar. An excitement rolls through me as I flip pages not yet dog-eared and see potential in all the tiny boxes standing ready for me to jot down the minutiae of my life.

Among the reformations of 2010 is my decision to keep better records than in 2009. Or 2008, or any year previous.

I’m notorious for losing things. Well, not losing them, really. It’s more like misplacing them and being unable to find them at the precise time they are needed.

Eventually, all things turn up. As I frantically search for the latest electric bill because I know, just know, I’m way past-due, I find the address of someone I promised to send a picture to months before.

Or as I hunt through the file cabinet for a car title, I run across the bank document I really needed last year, and paid money to replace.

I suspect my problem is my fuzzy memory. I know I’m supposed to keep some sort of records for seven years, or incur the wrath of the Powers That Be, but I’ll be darned if I can remember what those records are.

Tax returns? Yeah, I think so.

Which makes me pretty certain I need to keep all the receipts and forms I used when I filed my taxes.

Which are all kept in a drawer of a file cabinet in my house, the contents of which see the light of day once a year, when I add the latest stapled documents to the drawer.

I imagine I could throw away the years of bank statements and cancelled checks that fill more file space, but my natural inclination to panic keeps me from trashing it. What if I’m forced to prove that I actually did pay in advance for that magazine I ordered back in 2001?

Remember back when technology was new and personal computers were the latest, greatest thing? We were promised that these new-fangled machines would simplify our lives and do away with paperwork.

Yeah, right.

Here’s what it’s come down to:

I receive an e-mail containing an e-statement that is important to keep. Because I — like so many of my fellow Americans — don’t totally trust my computer not to crash and burn, I print off a copy to keep.

Which, of course, immediately goes into the file cabinet with all those papers from the pre-electronic age.

If I had made a resolution for this new year, it would probably have been to spend a day — or month — cleaning out my desk drawers, file cabinet and the other various and sundry places where I store things I may need someday.

But since I didn’t make that resolution, and I probably wouldn’t have kept it anyway, that’s where my new “better records” decision will pay off.

I’m gonna get one of those fancy journals with the gold trim and, on its crisp white pages, create headings like “In file cabinet,” “In desk,” “In kitchen drawer,” etc.

I’ll list items as I add them to those various storage places so I’ll know what’s where — and cross my fingers that I’ll manage to keep track of this one single book.

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