Posted on 04/14/2011 10:17:40 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Weve all been there havent we? The queue for the airport check-in when you suddenly realize you need something out of your luggage or that its slightly overweight because of the extra little things youve bought on holiday.
That rather expensive bottle of wine from the Italian vineyard you visited in the Tuscan hillside for example. Getting it home is usually a challenge in itself.
But few of us have ever tried to check in bags of .. sand.
Yes, sand. According to Virgin Atlantic that was just one thing a couple who fell in love on the Island of Grenada attempted to check in on their return flight home.
The airlines latest survey of its check in staff found its customers must rank as some of the weirdest individuals on the globe.
One passenger had her family carry her bath tub to the airport at JFK airport expecting to be able to check it in. According to Virgin it wasnt even wrapped or packaged she just turned up with it at the check in desk.
Another passenger turned up at the check in desk with a giant wheel of cheese while yet another expected to be able to check in a car engine.
New Yorks JFK airport has seen some truly bizarre baggage check attempts, Virgin said.
One passenger tried to put a dead cow that had been wrapped in plastic into the hold of the flight they were due to take. Another tried to sneak onto her flight with her pet tarantula hidden inside her coat. Yet another tried to check in a bag of cutlery they had stolen on a previous Virgin Atlantic flight at Delhi airport.
Also among the most bizarre was a couple that tried to check a suitcase filled with sand and water from the Caribean island of Grenada as a memento of their holiday on the island. They also tried to take a bag of soil and a coconut tree on their flight.
Needless to say, none of the above attempts to sneak such contraband onto flights succeeded.
Ah, come on, let them take the dead cow.
I’m trying to figure that one out actually. Anyone who’s ever seen “The Long Long Trailer with Lucy and Desi understands the sand, though.
Id swipe sand from the Beaches of Normandy.
I brought home a film cannister filled with sand from Omaha beach; had no problems.
Why was the wheel of cheese refused?
No indeed. TSA checks all threats.
All.
You got a problem with that?
I have a girlfriend that collects sand. She keeps it in testtubes on her mantle. It’s fascinating, actually. Sand is different everywhere in the world. It’s black, brown, white, pink, etc.
She says there are sites you can order it on the internet. And of course everywhere she goes she collects a tube.
While traveling in Yemen, I watched a local argue with a guard about why he should be allowed to bring his goat on the plane. Eventually he gave up and went home with his goat.
I think Turkish Airlines, lets passengers carry them, if they are on their lap.
The military rules here in Iraq prohibit bringing or mailing a testube or cannister of sand out of here.
But people do it all the time.
A bathtub?
I wonder what third-world country that passenger was from?
Are Bill and Hillary are flying on commercial air now???
I brought home various plants from the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, in my pants; the climbing vine was not too bad, but that cactus was a labor of love. It has yet to thrive in the muggy Houston climate, which is a big dissapointment after all the tears I shed for it.
I had so many plants that I ran out of places to stow them, and eventually decided to just mail a big box of them home. Yay for USPS Flat Rate!
Massachusetts?
You can see plenty of front yard bathtub shrines there.
Try growing the cactus in a pot of rocks with just enough soil for the roots to take hold and put it on the SW side of the house. Make sure it is not in the shade.
**I am a gardener. I like rare and unusual plants.**
I was going to add that you may want to post something on the weekly gardening thread.
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