"Turtle Burger" by flickr user 'flaunted'
There are many things you feel you need to pack for your holidays. Clothes and sunglasses and Factor 15 or higher sunscreen (so says the Skin Cancer Awareness Board) and some flip flops etc... these are the essentials. Things you require. But there are also things you pack that are not as necessary but will provide you some comfort on the flight.
Your plane hat or your comfy shorts or your lucky Diazepam. Or your pet turtle disguised as a Zinger Tower Burger.
That last one is probably specific to this one guy, whose name has only been given as Li, who was caught trying to smuggle his pet turtle onto a plane at China's Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. He queued up, put his bag down on the conveyor, opened his laptop and removed the battery. All that fun shit they force you to do to make sure there's not a bomb under your keyboard (presumably they check under B O and M). But when carry on went through the X-Ray machine, staff noticed something odd about his KFC Burger.
Something more odd than having packed a KFC burger in the first place. There was something sticking out of the burger, and it wasn't lettuce. Or an onion ring. Security demanded that he open his bag so they could check it out. Mr Li wasn't too keen, but he was very suspicious because he said, "There's no turtle in there! Just a hamburger!"
First mistake Li.
KFC don't sell hamburgers.
Idiot.
When they eventually got the bag away from him and cracked it open they found that inside the KFC box was his pet turtle. They questioned Mr Li as to why the bloody hell he would hide a turtle in a chicken box, and he said he just wanted to stay together with his "beloved" pet. Which is quite sweet, but also very peculiar.
Ultimately they made him hand the turtle, whose name we never got but who I will call Rasputin, to a friend to look after till he got back. Which, incidentally, is what you should always do with any animals you might own or be friends with.
Mr Li wasn't charged with anything, because Turtle Smuggling isn't a crime. It's just weird.
Words by Gazz Wood
Gazz Wood is a writer from The Northern Film School at Leeds Met University. As well as writing for Wireless he can also be heard on the monthly podcast Possibly of Interest with TV Producer Howard Cohen and special guests from the world of British TV and Cinema, plus his own weekly show Gazz Wood Has A Podcast.
