Homeland Security, Comrade...

Why does customs hate fitness?

I ordered myself a pair of 24kg kettlebells on September 16th. Normally, Dragon Door is quite speedy in getting stuff out to me, but these happened to be back-ordered. Since the particular type I ordered are manufactured overseas, I wasn't too surprised to hear that Customs was holding them, waiting for some paperwork. The paperwork was delivered to them last week, and they were supposed to ship out this week. Today, however, I got the following email:

Dear Linus,

I apologize, but I have to be the bearer of bad news again. We will not be shipping the RR002 Russian Red Kettlebell until the beginning of November. Customs did receive the paperwork but now is insisting on opening every box and checking each kettlebell. We have no control over this. We are hoping they finish up quickly and get them sent to us. At this time we can not give you an estimated ship date, it depends on how long customs takes to do what they want.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Shannon K

Dragon Door Customer Service


Why does Customs need to open up every box? These are 53 pound balls of iron with handles. For those of you who aren't familiar with kettlebells, they are solid - there is no opening in them, and no moving parts. I would think that an X-ray followed by running two dogs past them (one for drugs, one for explosives) would be sufficient.

Why is Customs interfering with my workouts? Do they want me to go back to being fat? Perhaps they are being paid off by the food lobbies to keep kettlebells, the AK47 of fitness equipment, out of the hands of Americans. With simple yet brutally effective tools like kettlebells, we might actually recover some of our lost functionality. We might get our collectively fat asses off the couch and start moving again, and reclaim the joy of physicality - our birthright. We might stop eating fattening, fried, animal-based foods, and lose the excess baggage that 65% of Americans are currently carrying around. We might even become more confident in our own capabilities, and less complacent! We could organize, get things back on track, and demand better treatment at the hands of our government... Oh - wait.

Yeah. I'm not holding my breath on this shipment. Could be a while.

4 comments:

kens kettlebell blog said...

great comment. I have had problems with getting GS kettlebells as well. but we should be manufacturing these kettlebells in the USA instead of china or India where most are currently coming from. They are worth the wait so hang in there. your suffering will be coming so.
Ken

Regis said...

Citizens shouldn't be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of its citizens. I think you may have hit the nail on the head.

Or it could just be come good old-fashioned commie paranoia? Gotta keep that Russian Red menace out of this God-fearin' country, after all.

Ooh, could these flab-fighting tools be considered weapons of mass destruction?

Okay, I'm done.

Big Gay Jim said...

No, but a weapon of mass REduction, perhaps. ;)

Claytonian said...

If you work out too much, you may become "the bomb"

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