This is what the information age looks like

I’m drowning in paper. Every day my post office box is stuffed full of catalogs. Multiples from Restoration Hardware and J. Crew (I can only assume that every time I order from them they put my name on the mailing list — again), newspaper circulars advertising sales I won’t use, bank statements, bills and the occasional notice of a friend’s art show or gallery opening fill up the box. I can’t remember the last time someone sent me a letter via the mail. There’s e-mail for that.

So it’s a rainy day and I’m cleaning my office, trying to get out from under the deluge of paper. My desk is big, probably too big — 6 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. That means there is a lot of room for a lot of paper.

What is all this paper? There is the stack of catalogs I saved from the culling into the blue recycle bins at the post office. In my defense, they offer products I really like, and if I could just find the time I’m sure I would find the perfect garden tool/yoga pant/bath mat/water pitcher/photo album/dog bed that I’d love to buy.

On this side are the binders, brochures and mailing lists of the multiple committees for which I volunteer. There are the children’s various school files; the college search info alone could fill an entire file drawer with catalogs and applications.

I look at these mailings and wonder at the expense and time that went into putting them together. I cringe at the thought of the number of trees that were sacrificed so I can flip through the material before I toss it away.

u      u      u

On another corner of the desk is the pile of Must Attend to Right Away items. I suspect the ones on the bottom are several months old, because the last time I rifled through it before giving up, defeated, was a few weeks ago.

There are the insurance surveys, change of address forms, one-time only offers that will expire soon and the ones I really hate: the mailings from companies that require that I sign something if I don’t want the service they’re offering. You mean I have to read the fine print and return this if I don’t want to be billed $5.95 a month for a service I was never interested in anyway? Ugh.

Magazines also follow this formula. I was in a store recently, checking out my few purchases, and managed to get through the, “No, I don’t have a card or want a card,†scenario unscathed. Then the cashier flipped open a display of three magazines, any one of which I could subscribe to and get absolutely free (for three months) at which point — read the fine print — I would then be responsible for canceling the subscription or paying it in full. Tempting. But, I admit to myself that if I said yes to that offer, I would not remember to cancel the subscription in April. And, remember, I’m already drowning in paper.

u      u      u

Today is the day I’ve decided to really clean up my office. Of course, to do this properly, I have to update my filing system, because among the stacks on my desk are the To Be Filed papers.

Many years ago I bought bright red and blue folders with corresponding labels and set up a system. Looking at it now, that system is no longer clear to me. Was the red for financial and the blue for personal, or is it the other way around? There are files holding long-closed accounts and interests. And there are just bags and bins full of Important Papers that don’t even have a file.

Paper is for the superstitious or the technologically challenged. The computer age should have made manilla file folders obsolete. But if I want my files, which extend back over non-digital years, on my computer, I would have to scan them in. That’s an even more daunting task than filing.

I look up, the rain has stopped. I have decided there is something reassuring about paper. I think I’ll take the dogs for a walk. The Important Papers That Need to Be Filed will wait for another day.

Tara Kelly, copy editor at The Lakeville Journal, is an avid follower of social trends. She may be reached by e-mail at tarak@lakevillejournal.com.

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