Some years ago I bought a "fire box". This is a secure box that not only locks, but will allegedly survive a fire. So if your house burns down, the stuff inside the box will still be intact.
Recently I was looking for some item and thought that it might be in the fire box. I found the key and opened it and didn't see it in there. More importantly, I realized I was keeping next to NOTHING inside of my fire box. In fact, it was stuff that I wouldn't even remember if a fire consumed my home.
Here's what made it from the fire box, into my trash:
- Old list of phone numbers. This was a handy little card of hand-written numbers that I pseudo-laminated and used to keep in my wallet. That was back in the mid to late 90s. Most of the people on here are people I know longer talk to, already have their number stored on my cell phone and other places, or have since changed their number.
- Medical plan card to an old medical plan that I'm no longer on, and haven't been on in over 5 years. Into the shredder you go.
- Spencer Gifts rewards/membership card. They no longer support these. But damn, I sure got a lot of use out of it back in the day. At some point it felt like they were sending me $10 coupons every month.
- Discovery store rewards/membership card. They too no longer support these.
- Karaoke slip. You know, when you go to a bar to do karaoke? And you write your name along with the catalog number of the song you want to do? Not only is that particular night long since over, but I don't even have a clue what bar this was from or what song it was.
The moral of the story? Fire boxes seem like a good investment...if you stuff you put inside is actually of some value to you!
