The Blade of MAF

Picture the scene...Brit contacts courier agency to ship a box of files to Middle Earth. After weighing the package, sufficiently padding it and insuring it against theft, loss and Balrog terrorism, Brit waits in all day for DHL to collect the item, missing out on valuable social gatherings and a mobility scooter fair in Crossgates. The package is eventually picked up and arrives in NZ and as luck would have it is held up by customs arm MAF. Cue emails and calls to the couriers who confess that they are powerless in such circumstances but will do all they can to help. Which is very little as it transpires.

The couriers have outsourced to DHL NZ who say they will clear it with customs for a further 168 Hobbit dollars, which is jolly decent of them. The alternative is that we sort it ourselves, but if we don't do it in 5 working days (hello rapidly approaching Christmas, when the Kiwis effectively shut down for 2 weeks) then they'll charge us a storage fee. Probably $167.50 or something.

Anyway, by a stunning coincidence, we had a MAF officer here today looking at our imported items for traces of cocaine and catnip. The two boxes he had to examine were actually in the garage. Pickfords had dropped the entire amount off a few days before telling us we could unpack everything except those two boxes as MAF wanted to check them. So, they left the boxes with us to show to MAF. Really. Had we actually been smuggling stuff in we could have just taken out the contraband and resealed them. MAF and customs would have been none the wiser. As we are honest folk we were justly rewarded when the MAF officer said the couriers are “a bunch of bastards” and gave us some good info on how to get it sorted for no extra cost.

In other news, I can heartily recommend the knife range Forever Sharp. After enduring a 10 minute presentation at The Warehouse where the salesman chopped up veg, a wood block and a steel hammer (no lie) I was given a free sample blade which I have used for several days on various food items, wiring and packing boxes. The surgical stainless steel blade even remained razor sharp and untarnished after I buried it a quarter of an inch into my thumb earlier this afternoon.

Should Frodo Baggins ever lose Sting, the people at Forever Sharp have his back.