So selling taxidermy is against the law....who knew?!

So I'm sitting here awake at 3:13am. Maybe not an unusual event in my life as of late. I've spent the last 10 hours of my day feeling sorry for myself. Again, lately, par for the course... But today is different...

As of this post, things have not been going the way I'd like them to in life. I lost my dream job over a year ago, to downsizing.. (sound familiar?) My credit cards are owing at what now seems like an insurmountable amount, but because my monthly minimums are met, they keep raising the limit, which I don't know how good of an idea that is for myself, or the companies themselves....

I am selling off anything and everything I have to try and help out with the bills, you know, the mortgage, the car payment, the aforementioned credit card bills. Basically, if it's not nailed down, it has a good chance of going on the local web classifieds website.

Because I seem to be a borderline hoarder, I really like my stuff. Everything I have, has a purpose, I might not need it right now, but I'm telling you, if I throw it out today, I'll more than likely need it tomorrow. So when going through these possessions, I try and separate them into categories. Stuff I want to keep no matter what, but I put in boxes to sort out later, and other stuff that I think is cool, that I put into boxes that I'll go through again later. And then there's the stuff that I have, I don't know why, but I might like to use it, see it, play with it again later, so I put it into boxes....you get the picture by now, I'm sure.

When I bought this house, the previous owner was gracious enough to overstay his tenancy by 3 days, totally ruining my move in schedule, and putting me out for that time period. Being the nice person that I can sometimes be, I let him sort out some problems that came up at the last moment in regards to his new place of residence. By doing this, he agreed to let me have a few things as kind of a repayment, since no money exchanged hands.

I acquired a garage full of old rusty tools, shelves full of half used containers of stuff (it's been 5 years, I still don't know what's in the garage, cause there's always something better to do).

From my meetings with the previous owner (and from seeing the house's decor before when we were viewing the house), he advised me that he was a previously a taxidermist. His walls and shelves were littered with different animals, of which included Mexican Eagles, an Owl (with a chipmunk in it's claws and wings spread wide), two Deer Heads, a Red Fox (not the comedian), a few little fish, and a couple of misc horns, and a Canada Goose.

In our exchange, he agreed to give me one of the Deer Heads, and a Cuckoo Clock, as well as the garage full of crap, hardly worth it, but was happy just to have him and the rest of his stuff out of my first house.

I am not a hunter, I have never been hunting, never want to go hunting, don't own a gun, etc..
I don't even fish anymore, and when I did, it was always catch and release. It's been about 8 years since I have been camping. Life took over, and I haven't had the time, or made the time. I have my own little family, and I like spending time with them, and also with my computer. I am a hermit crab, everything I want, need or truly care about is in the confines of my home.

Seeing as how I have not worked a day since the middle of December (this is now May 7th, for those of you who are counting), money has become rather tight. We are barely keeping our heads above the water, and it's taken some very strict spending, stocking up on sale items, NO fast food, living out of the freezer, bargaining with the mortgage company, and a lot of willpower, not to mention some creative meal planning to make things work. I have even had a garage sale, and sold some of my precious "stuff", as heartbreaking as that sounds.

So I've placed ads on the local classifieds site (Kijiji), and one of the items I had chosen to sell, was the Deer Head. Personally, I don't condone the killing of any animal, but it was already dead when I got it, it was already mounted, and it looked pretty darn cool on my wall.

I also have another piece of taxidermy, a salmon my dad caught in Lake Ontario on a fishing trip with his fireman buddies. I think I was 10 when he caught it. He always liked to tell the story about why he brought it home. His friends told him "If you throw that fish back, we'll throw you in with it" (It sounded better coming from Dad). He had it mounted and put on display at his "Rod and Gun Club" as it was a rather large fish. When he passed away, one of his buddies took the fish to his house, and told me he would keep it safe for me until I had my own house to put it up in. I lost touch with that man for 14 years. I looked him up on Facebook one day, and a few weeks later, I went to his house, and took the trophy home, and it's been mounted on my wall ever since (in the same room as the Deer Head).

Now, because living in my house, instead of out on the streets, is cooler than having a stuffed deer head, I decided that the deer head was something, that I could live without. It has no emotional ties.

So I looked up taxidermy on ebay, and there is quite a bit, so I find out what my deer head is worth, to see if it's worth selling, so that I can maybe, oh, I don't know, live in my modest house a few more days. At the garage sale, I had an older gentleman offer to buy the deer head, and the cuckoo clock for a combined $100. After I told him where to go, I looked on ebay and found that the deer head could be worth $350 or more.

I don't know anything about deer heads, and I don't know what kind of shape dead animals have to be in to get that kind of money, but I'm not greedy, and I decided to modestly price the deer head at $250. Not a ton of money, but enough to outweigh the "cool" factor. So I took a couple of pictures, and I listed it on Kijiji, and I had a few people inquire about it, but seeing as people sometimes just seem to like to e-mail me about ads to see if I still have my items, rather than to purchase them, I didn't get anything 'concrete' until last week. The guy cancelled and advised that he couldn't come to see it until today, but that he was coming from out of town. This to me, showed me that he was actually interested, and I was kind of happy knowing that I might soon be able to make a few bucks to help make up for FIVE PLUS MONTHS of not earning a pay cheque.

So I made arrangements to have the man come over to see the deer head in the mid afternoon (he was late). He arrived at about 5:20pm. He seemed interested, he made a few comments about how many points the antlers had, and asked whether I knew the history of it, I advised him of how I had obtained it, he seemed satisfied, and made an offer. We agreed on a price of $220, and reluctantly, I brought it out to his car, and placed it in the back seat.

My daughter had recently told me that she liked the deer head, and that if I couldn't find a buyer, she'd love to have it mounted in her bedroom (she is 7). I told the man that my daughter probably wouldn't be too happy. We shook hands, said goodbye, and less than 5 minutes later, there is a knock at the door. Outside through the window, I see a man wearing what look like army fatigues, and although I thought it was strange for the army to be recruiting door to door, I opened the door, to see the man I sold the deer head to, another man, and the man in the fatigues.

His words to me: "Did you just sell this man a deer head?"
Me: Yes
Him: "Did you know it was illegal to sell taxidermy in Ontario?"
Me (now with a ghostly white shocked look on my face): "N-N-No"

So now, he asks for the money back, which without hesitation was out of my pocket and back into his hands within seconds. He advises me that he is keeping the deer head as evidence, and that I should be getting a summons in the mail, probably for a date with the Justice of the Peace, for June 1st, "Hopefully" he said. He also advised me that the maximum fine for selling taxidermy was $25,000, but under the circumstances that my fine, should I have to pay one, would be way down the other end of the spectrum, but he couldn't elaborate any further.
He told me it wasn't "like committing a crime", but it was against the law. (I am still trying to wrap my head around that statement), so there will be no record.

I now have neither the money, nor the "cool" deer head on my wall. I have that much more stress in my life, BECAUSE I REALLY NEEDED THAT.

Hopefully the Justice of the Peace will open his eyes, and realize that what I am sure of that 99.999999% of the general public have no clue that this frivolous law even exists, and throw out the case, and give me back what is rightfully mine, even though I don't know how "cool" I'll find it to be at this point.

As a person with morality, I do try and do the right thing, bring my daughter up in a good household, teach her right from wrong. Now I myself question how I am supposed to do that properly if some of the laws set forth defy common sense. I certainly don't recall getting a manual from the government telling me it wasn't okay to sell something that belongs to me.
As far as I know, Sony doesn't have the power to stop me from selling my used video game system, and as well, is it illegal to sell the old ring I no longer use?.
Why couldn't these people just e-mail me and tell me it was illegal, instead of sending 3 guys (who I am sure are paid quite a bit) to trap me, and confiscate something I had no idea was wrong to sell.

Give me the job, pay me to e-mail people the facts. I'd probably work happily forever on half of one of these idiot's salaries. Please start working on better ways of getting information to people. If I had no reason to think it was illegal, why would I try and find out? I don't want to take the easy way out and claim ignorance, but you can't expect people to know things that you alone were educated to learn for your specific job. Give a warning!, something!

This is what your tax dollars are doing while you're trying desperately not to Sprint Backwards Through Life.