I was moving from Seattle to Boston in 1998 and brought our six pet rats in a carrier with me on the plane. When we went through security at Sea-Tac I didn't want to put the rats through the x-ray so I asked if I could carry them through. The security lady said, "What is it?' and I said "Rats" and lifted the blanket back. Rats being rats, half of them were hanging from the wire top to see what was going on.

The lady freaked the fuck out. Literally jumped back feet and waved me through as quickly as possible.

There's no way she saw past the rats into the carrier to see what else was in there. It occurred to me later that I could have had a bomb, a gun, kilos of cocaine, literally any kind of contraband, and a lot of it. I was a white woman approaching 30 so maybe I got the benefit of the doubt but honestly, I think she just wanted the rats gone ASAP.