A woman’s duffel bag was flagged by airport security, only for them to find it was bursting at the seams with bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
When I go on holiday, I’m always absolutely ravenous for Lays. Just plain old, original Lays – no fancy flavours, just salt. They are the king of crisps, somehow better than Walkers – so you best bet when I’m coming home, I take a couple of bags back with me.
Emily Mei, an online influencer, took her fried snack love to the next level – until the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) got hold of her crisp-filled bag.
Check out Mei’s video below:
Mei didn’t just try to take one, two, or even three bags on the plane – she was caught with 20 large bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Posting the video of the TSA incident on Twitter, Mei wrote:
Will never forget the day TSA stopped me cuz they thought i was hiding shit inside my bag cuz all i had was like 20 bags of Hot Cheetos.
In the clip, you can see a TSA agent rummaging through the Louis Vuitton Keepall duffel bag, removing bags of Cheetos while performing swab tests to check for chemicals that may be used for explosives or drugs.
Mei isn’t just your everyday Cheetos lover – she was travelling from the US to Korea, where the snacks are scarcely available. Nothing like stocking up for winter.
Following on from the video, Mei wrote:
For everyone who’s asking why i had so many bags of Hot Cheetos, apparently it’s hard to get in Korea so my friends always ask me to bring it for them LOL.
The video, posted on October 5, went viral quickly: it’s been viewed more than 1.7 million times, retweeted more than 15,000 times and has also amassed more than 87,000 likes.
As well as finding the ordeal (rightly) hilarious, her followers have been sympathetic, with many calling her a ‘hero’.
One user wrote: ‘They hate to see you win.’ Another wrote: ‘This is the hero we’ve been waiting for.’
Others shared their only culinary tales of woe while travelling, with one person replying with a case packed to the brim with Cheez-Its.
Many users pointed out the fact Mei was hoarding the Cheetos in such a fashionable bag. One user commented: ‘The fact that they are all in an LV bag makes this 11/10.’
Food is permitted according to TSA guidelines, however items can be flagged if they ‘clutter bags or obstruct clear images on the X-ray machine’ – I imagine the agents wouldn’t be able to see much through the 20 bags of Cheetos.
Great, now I’m gagging for a massive bag of crisps.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.