Sam Amico
Agents at New York’s JFK were stunned to find what appeared to be the outline of a cat inside a suitcase that made its way through the checkpoint X-ray machine.
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They were perhaps even more stunned to find that it was indeed a cat, and alive at that. “It’s rare to discover a live animal in a checked bag,” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein told CNN.
After the discovery, the man who was boarding a flight to Orlando was called into security and told to explain.
The best he could come up with was that the cat did not belong to him, but rather, someone else in the household.
Per the New York Post, the cat is named Smells, though it wasn’t an odor that gave him away. It was the X-ray — and the fur sticking out of the suitcase. For the record, Smells is back home, alive and well. He’s orange, and cat lovers will tell you that orange cats are the friendliest and most patient cats.
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Smells appears to fit the profile and seemingly wasn’t the least bit upset by any of this. In fact, Smells and Smells alone was apparently responsible for the whole thing.
After all, his actual owner said the cat had crawled into the suitcase unknowingly. That is a very cat thing to do, though Smells has not been charged.
“We’re letting the cat out of the bag on a hiss-toric find,” the agency wrote on Twitter. “This CATch had our baggage screening officers @JFKairport saying, ‘Come on meow’! Feline like you have travel questions reach out to our furiends @AskTSA. They’re available every day, from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. (ET).”
As for the man with the cat in the bag? Well, it appears he missed his flight. Multiple accounts say he did, however, make it to Florida the next day. Try as Smells might to catch some Florida rays, he remained in New York.
“Our cats really like to check out bags and boxes and apparently one of them climbed into his suitcase. It was just an accident,” the owner told the Post.
