Freewrite day 162 - To Shred or to Burn

This story is in response @mariannewest 's prompt for day 146 of her 5-minute freewrite challenge. Today's prompt was ash

I have been thinking of getting a shredder for a while. It's fun to shred stuff, let's be honest. It's oh so very fun to insert a paper into that mashing-wheel contraption and observe all those once-valuable documents containing valuable information torn into irrecoverable ribbons. But more practically, there have been enough occasions where I have had documents that would like to destroy for privacy/security reasons and where i have been forced to shred manually.
Manual shredding is just not as fun as machine shredding. It's a lot more work and I can often still read all the stuffs on the pages. Hence my growing conviction that I need to get an actual shredder.

That is, until the other day when I was updating all of my cryptocurrency security measures and I was trying to rid myself of certain papers containing certain codes. I was about to engage once again in my underwhelming manual shredding technique when I remembered that my house is actually equipped with not one but two wood-burning stoves and that paper burns quite well. Why it took me so long to make this connection I do not know.

I filled the stove with all my unwanted papers and set it ablaze with the help of a little lighting fluid. I watched until my documents were reduced to ashes. Screw the shredder, I'll hereforth spend my time watching my important stuff burn thank you very much!