Happy Halloween!

Jack and Jill went on a pumpkin picking date.

Taking things personally- the origin of our cattiness?

 

I came to a realization via a post on Facebook the other day. It was that people personalize the doll hobby, internalize it so much, that any little comment or critique about the dolls or the hobby becomes a personal attack against the hobbyist.

I first addressed it when I was writing my post on why dolls are creepy.

How Customs in the United States Works: An Unoffical Guide for Doll Owners

I am not familiar with the customs of other countries, but I'll definitely be researching more into that to hopefully write about in the future. For now, this post is about US Customs, what they do, why we have customs, what items can be taxed in the US and what can't, as well as how long you can expect a package to take once it enters customs.
It will probably have some errors, and I'll corect these as I find them or they are pointed out to me. Do you  have an experience with customs? Share it in the comments below. 

What is Customs?

Customs is an agency that intercepts all packages going into a country. The full agency name is the office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).They inspect the packages, sometimes opening them, to ensure that the items coming into the country are legal or fall into a taxable category.

There are 329 ports of entry in the United States. It is at these ports that US import and export laws are enforced. There are also 20 field offices that seem to do most of the processing of packages, based on what I can tell from the CBP website. For me, because I am in the Western US, most packages pass through Customs in California before heading to me.