Hamsters On A Plane.

So Cait and I are sitting on the plane, ready for takeoff. Cabin doors are closed. Overhead bins are in lockdown mode. iPods and cell phones powered down. You know, the uge prep for takeoff.

We're chatting in our seats about the shenanigans we plan to cause, sights we plan to see, po boys we plan to eat, etc. etc. and all of the sudden, we notice some commotion in the row in front of us across the aisle.

Because we were deeply engaged in conversation, we missed the exacts of the initial confrontation, but here's basically how it went down:

Security officer (like, the real, scary deal): Sir, do you have it on the plane?
Man on plane: Yes, I can get it from overhead and place it under my seat. No problem.
Security officer (really, really pissed off): No. You cannot have it on the plane AT ALL. Gather your things and come with me immediately.

So the dude gets out of his seat and is a hot, sweaty mess. His shirt was literally dripping. Pretty sure the lady sitting next to him was real glad he got booted. Anyway, he grabbed a green bowling-bag-ish thing from the overhead and was escorted off the plane.

You can only imagine the buzz around our little seating area upon Mr. Schwetty's manhandled exit. Did he have drugs? A gun? Something else very illegal and dangerous? When the flight attendant came back to give us our exit row instructions we just had to ask what went down.

As you might have guessed, the man had a HAMSTER in the green bag. A HAMSTER. Obvi, our next question was, "How the heck did he get it through security?"

HE PUT IT ON HIS PERSON.  Like, down his shirt.

It makes perfect sense -- the X-Ray machine that all the luggage goes through would have caught it, but the metal detectors that people go through wouldn't have. And much to Mr. Schwetty's unluck, a flight attendant for OUR FLIGHT just happened to go through security right behind him and saw his trick.

I'm still uncertain as to why they let him get SO far through the process (literally, minutes before takeoff) before catching him, but it made for some really, really, really great entertainment all weekend. Cait only had to look at me and say "hamster" and I would literally laugh for 3 minutes.

And to make my life more entertaining, there was a gift shop at the gate when we landed and the featured "toy of the month" was none other than...