One can only wonder what the potty patrolman would have thought had he seen me enter an airport restroom with my parrot a few years ago. I was replacing the paper towels at the bottom of her carrier. (Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I was doing, officer...)
Of course, I had been stopped once with my parrot going through the x-ray machine at the airport. The security screener insisted I take my bird out of her carrier so he could inspect the bottom of it (the bottom of it is the aforementioned paper towels and the bird poop they catch which looked rather evident to me). I suggested that perhaps he might wish to do a full cavity search of the parrot just to be sure she wasn’t carrying any explosives. This idea was met with scowls.
Notice how most airport terminals have extremely high ceilings. It is certainly not the sort of place one should let out a bird unless the wings have been clipped or the airport might gain a new permanent resident. Fortunately, my bird simply climbed up on my shoulder to watch the odd proceedings and my only challenge was to coax her back into the carrier. We made our flight but I would have been quite angry if I had missed it over something like this.
Of course, your patch, your pegleg, and your three-cornered hat contributed to the screener’s suspicions.
Good thing you left your flintlock pistols at home.
< }B^)
Your suggestion of a body cavity search of your parrot brings to mind an image of a huge parrot with a finger sticking out of its beak, followed by AWWWK! Bad Cop! Bad Cop!