Raw Chicken Parts Spotted Joyriding Through Airport Baggage Claim

Airline baggage restrictions are a mess. If your flight is overbooked (and they're always overbooked), you've got to gate-check your carry-on. If your checked luggage is 0.00001 ounces over the baggage weight limit, you're out another $40. And if you choose to travel with a frozen cube of raw chicken parts, your beaks 'n' butts could pick up all sorts of baggage claim detritus. It's the savvy traveler's cross to bear, I suppose.

The latter scenario occurred last week, according to a video posted on the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Instagram. The TSA video shows a large pile of raw chicken parts circling on a baggage carousel alongside other, more orthodox passenger luggage. (Watch the video, it's totally worth it.)

To be clear, this isn't a whole, plucked chicken. The video shows a literal pile of unwrapped chicken parts that appear to have been frozen into a compact cube. Once again, the parts are unwrapped, which suggests the presence of chicken juice on the carousel. A free gift! Who wouldn't want to travel with chicken-soaked luggage?

"Can chickens fly? Well... assuredly no poultry is flying like this," the TSA wrote in the post. "We hear at one time these wings and thighs were cooped up in a cooler. Somewhere between baggage and the carousel they became free range." Who claimed the chicken? We're not sure. It's also unclear whence the chicken came, or how it broke free from its packaging, although the TSA did stipulate in the post that all raw meat should be "properly packaged" in ice or dry ice before takeoff. Finally, although the airport is unnamed, the video is tagged under "Seattle, Washington."

Without an explanation, we're left to ponder the chicken's origins. I've got a few theories:

• A hungry passenger prefers to travel with a raw, organic protein source at all times
• An aggrieved airport employee quit their job and went out in a flaming burst of smelly prankery
• Somebody's trying to distract those drug-sniffing airport beagles

Only one thing is sure in this scenario: the video is incredibly funny, especially when it slows halfway through to show how the chicken sails elegantly down the carousel. Please, if you have any information as to the origins of the airport poultry, contact me at once. I have many queries.