Bunny food

The TSA agent looked stern—as they usually do.

“I’d like to look inside this bag, ma’am,” he said. 

“No problem!” 

I always sound a little too eager when being questioned by an authority figure. I’m trying so hard to prove I have nothing to hide that I sound like I must have something to hide. 

The agent proceeded to open my carry-on bag.

“It’s a bowl!” I told him with a little too much enthusiasm. 

My husband, Peter, was supposed to have put the bowl in his checked luggage, but at the last minute, he became concerned it might break. It was a large, ceramic bowl we were bringing back from Mexico, and we’ve had ceramic stuff break in the past. 

“Why don’t you put it in your carry-on?” Peter asked, after I was already more or less packed. 

“That big bowl in my carry-on?” I was dubious.

“I think it will be safer. I can take whatever you had planned to put in your carry-on.”

So I took the bowl, already wrapped up in bubble wrap, and put it in my carry-on, and now the TSA agent wanted to take a look at it. Of course, it wasn’t empty.

We had a lot of little things to bring back from Mexico after three months, and Peter had stuffed who-knows-what into the bowl before wrapping it in bubble wrap. So when the agent asked me what was in the bowl, I looked bewildered – which was not the look I was going for when being inspected by this serious agent. 

“Peter!” I hissed. “What’s in the bowl?”

“Food!” Peter replied.

“Food?” the agent asked. 

Oh, great, I thought. Now this agent is going to be thinking we’re bringing in a ham or something. We know the rules of what can and cannot come into the country. But some things are a little vague. Meat is out. Cheese is OK. Some fruits and vegetables are out. It’s confusing, and I was worried that whatever Peter had put in the bowl might cause issues.

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