Arachnophobia

Last night I had a close encounter with a spider. Normally, this would not merit any discussion. In most cases, when I find a spider that has taken up residence in my house, I scoop it up and toss it outside to fend for itself. I believe the spider PR that they eat things we like even less than spiders.

But this was different.

My new roommate was big.

Really big. I looked into its eight eyes and I saw no fear.

To get this into perspective, we are not talking Clint Eastwood's Tarantula. But, we could easily be talking about an extra from William Shatner's Kingdom of the Spiders. This spider claimed Peter Parker as a dependent on its last tax return.

The spider sat in a plastic bin full of toys, mostly of the Play-Doh genre. I could not reach in with a shoe, newspaper, or other suitable blunt instrument as the spider was in a crevice between some containers.

So, I did exactly what a third world dictator would do. I gassed the S.O.B. More specifically, I sprayed it with a product cleverly called Spider Kill (note to producer: you must have the worst corporate web site in history). I have used this stuff, which quite literally smells like a used diaper, on my boat to control spiders. If left unchecked, tend to grow fat and ugly all over the place.

On the boat, I have grown quite accustomed to picking the critters up and tossing them overboard. Often, they are immediately gulped down by a bluegill or carp. But, I was not going near this thing. First, I am fairly certain it could bite. Second, I am also certain that it could jump up to my face, insert some sort of tube down my throat, and lay an egg that would eventually hatch into something that would burst from my chest, most likely while in court. While I would like to be like Lance, that means Armstrong not Hendriksen.

Having stunned the beast with chemical weapons, I took the entire bin outside and dumped it out. This allowed me to get a good look at it. Of course, the thing, like any good Alien, would not die. Rather, it started to scamper away. At which point, it was impacted by the sole of my shoe. May it rest in peace. I have since decontaminated the toys and the bin.

After extensive Google research, I have decided that the spider was a dotted wolf (Hogna punctulata) which "hunts by night and hides by day." Nice to know.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CAFC Decision in Double Invoicing Case

The Federal Circuit has issued a decision on the merits in United States v. Inn Foods, Inc.  There had been a previous decision on jurisdiction, which was followed by a trial at the Court of International Trade and then this appeal on the substance. The initial issue is whether Inn Foods' invoicing practice amounts to fraud.  Inn Foods had been receiving an invoice from growers in Mexico that had a relatively low sales prices on it.  Subsequent to entry, Inn Foods created a second invoice at something more similar to market value, retaining the original invoice number, and paid at that higher amount.   Superficially, this looks like a standard-issue double-invoicing scheme.  But, in the age of reconciliation, is it really more like a provisional pricing mechanism?  It might have been possible to make that argument had Inn Foods adjusted its entries accordingly.  It didn't and the loss of revenue was approximately $624,000.  Based on testimony and evidence indicating both knowl
Read more

Target on Finality

Image
In the last post , about the Federal Circuit’s very important decision on due process and allegations of evasion of antidumping duties, I made a snarky, offhand comment that the government believes “liquidation is magic.” That was in the context of the government arguing that Customs’ liquidation of entries mooted an appeal, thereby taking away the importer’s right to further judicial review. I said that knowing full well that I still needed to write this post summarizing Target Corp. v. United States in which Target made what I want to be a valid and righteous argument that Customs’ improper liquidation of entries at a favorable rate of antidumping duty prevents the Court of International Trade from ordering Customs to collect the legally applicable duties. But it turns out that while liquidation is an important legal step, in at least one unusual circumstance it is not sufficiently powerful to overcome the full force of an Article III court. Understanding this case requires a lot
Read more

CAFC: EAPA Process Really Does Violate Due Process

Image
Hot on the heels of my complaining about how the EAPA law and process is stacked against importers, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued an important decision that will have a major impact on how those cases work. If you are unfamiliar with evasion cases under the Enforce and Protect Act and how Customs and Border Protection handles them, go back and look at these two posts: Part 1 , Part 2. Royal Brush Manufacturing, Inc. v. United States , is the decision in an evasion case against Royal Brush involving pencils allegedly transshipped from China through the Philippines. Customs determined that there was evasion of an antidumping duty order based in part on evidence that was not disclosed to Royal. Specifically, Customs sent a representative to the facility in the Philippines to photograph the interior and provide a report. Customs refused to disclose all the photographs to Royal. Moreover, CBP's report concluded that the facility did not have sufficient capacit
Read more