Riddance Day feels good
IT WAS A bad hair day in Times Square.
Arlene Roberts flew from San Francisco to the Crossroads of the World for the 10th annual New Year’s Good Riddance Day, toting a wig picked up during her difficult days as a cancer patient.
She joined hundreds of people waiting Wednesday to shed unwanted totems of the past year in a Midtown shredder.
Roberts, accompanied by her husband of 27 years, trashed the hairpiece that she wore after undergoing chemotherapy following a 2013 diagnosis.
“I really wanted to get rid of this wig that I’m shredding here,” explained Roberts, who won a yearly contest sponsored by the Shred-it company. “I feel great, healthy and thankful.
“The wig is the last connection to my sickness.”
For Tim Tompkins, head of the Times Square Alliance, the bad hair belonged to the oddly coiffed President-elect Donald Trump.
Tompkins shredded a Trump photo with the message “Good riddance to tiny thumbs on Twitter” written beneath the incoming commander-inchief.
The turnout for this year’s hourlong event on Broadway was so heavy that organizers warned some on the line that they might not get a chance to feed their items in the shredder.
Many participants simply wrote down what they wanted to lose on a sheet of paper — and then fed it into the device.
Callie Sonderman, 19, of Harrisburg, Pa., disposed of “putting stuff off until tomorrow.” Carol Williams of Queens sent her “stress” through the shredder.
Other brought items.
“People come through with a laptop, or a picture of a relationship went wrong,” said Shred-it manager Brandon Greene. “What more fitting thing to do with a bad memory, right?” larger, harder-to-dispose-of