Beware of Important Documents Left at My House

Background:

• My wife says I never throw anything away. I'm often reminded that I have mail that I need to go through and to throw away/shred the junk mail. I'm more of a I'd rather do it all at one time sort of guy rather than a I want to sift through junk mail Mon-Sat kind of guy.
• My wife likes to throw everything away. Sometimes without even taking time out to be aware of what it is that is being tossed.
• Like in many places, Texas has an annual vehicle registration. In Mississippi, I believe you got a decal to place on your license plate. Here we get a sticker that goes in the window near the inspection sticker. This requires actually removing the old one which makes me a little slow to install the new stickers.

Last year when Shey's registration sticker arrived via mail she put it on the counter and told me to put it in her car. When I finally decided to do so (well before the old one expired, but probably 1-3 weeks after the new one arrived), the sticker was no where to be found. I was instantly blamed for taking too long and we assumed it must have been thrown out. I would be willing to wager a hefty sum that I did not throw it away.

Fast forward to this year. My registration sticker arrived and I put it on the counter on ready five for installation. My thought was that if I need to get the razor out to put mine on I might as well wait on Shey's to get here and do them at the same time. Last week Shey's sticker arrived. Over the weekend I proceeded to grab my sticker so I could install both. To my surprise my sticker was nowhere to be found.

When I asked Shey about it she said she had not seen it and I proceeded to search the house. Then Shey said something along the lines of, "...I don't remember throwing that away, buuuut... remember when I asked you if we needed to keep the registration receipts for our taxes?" Yes, I did actually remember that and "no" was the answer (and while we don't need them for tax purposes I do typically keep the receipt in a folder for vehicle related documentation as opposed to the tax related folder I thought she may have been inquiring about). I must have responded in Korean because my response was apparently translated into this registration sticker is trash.

I know it's my fault for trying to batch my work (a.k.a. taking too long). But as I searched through stuff on the counter I am left asking myself how is it that we can keep expired coupons, empty envelopes, old receipts, etc, but an official looking TxDOT sticker can be tossed as trash.