OT Farm Eq and a Ferrari

Lo in pulls a 53' flat bed trailer loaded 80% with Landpride farm and landscape equipment, and straped down on the very back was a delightful little Ferrari turquoise coup. An equally delightful young lady was driving this rig and joined myself and others at the picnic tables. She told us she had already been there for two hours and now they wanted to inspect the load. We watched as customs officer, after officer, after officer, etc inspected that little Ferrari. No attention whatever was put on the Landpride eq. We suggested to her she may be there for 24 hours awaiting customs to go through 3 shifts of the day then there are guys with day off, might want to have close look at a Ferrari. And that is bloody well all that was going on, a bunch of Custom Officers wanting to have a closer look at a Ferrari.

As I was leaving, I advised her sun would soon take away the shade heading into pm. It is not a pleasant spot late afternoon. I suggested to her there were some benefits to trucking cabbage, you deal with one Customs Officer and if he does look, it's a very quick glance.

Guess I know what happened to the freshly painted Super A fenders I left out to dry. I THOUGHT I smelled cabbage....

Speaking of Customs, cabbage and Hamtramck. One morning a US Customs Officer asked what I had on. I said, " cabbage". He looked at the manifest and said, " 41,000 lbs of cabbage and your going to Hamtramck. To bad I didn't have a reason to open that trailer, I love raw cabbage. My wife will not let me eat it at home. The worst polution in Hamtramck is caused by those first generation Poles and Ukrainians eating cabbage." I senced a bit of accent, just have a feeling this guy was second generation. Quite familiar with Hamtramck anyhow.

I find for the most part these guys exercise good judgement. Young and new trainees tend to be more troublsome than the old hands. Just a couple of examples; US customs were going to take my lunch one morning, had there been beef in it. I pointed out that being diabetic, it's not easy to buy lunch on the road, and the volumes my good wife measures out, it was very unlikely I would share this lunch with anyone. At Canada customs one day I had some pallets on truck, I couldn't account for on paper. While there were good pallets in the stack, most were crap. He thought I should declare these and pay the 7% Canadian GST. I suggested to him, I could also offload these pallets right in the compound.

I think in the case of this Ferrari, Canada Customs were questioning value as much as anything, I overheard one customs officer tell her they were waiting for a call from Transport Canada. Saw much same one day with horses, guy with a very elaborate fifth wheel trailer and pickup, trying to tell customs officer the horses were nags. He may have been much more convincing with a 25 year old truck.