The Transportation Safety Administration, or TSA, gets a lot of grief from a lot of people, and not without cause. They’ve never caught a terrorist, despite that being why they exist in the first place, for example. They also do some really stupid stuff over the years.

However, that’s not to say the bad guys trying to smuggle things haven’t done weird things either.

It seems the TSA just caught what might be one of the most…creative gun smugglers I’ve ever seen.

In what TSA officers called a “personal fowl,” they found a firearm inside the cavity of a raw chicken.

The Transportation Security Administration said in a social media post that its officers found the stuffed bird at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

…

The TSA had some fun with the post, introducing the story by saying, “The plot chickens,” and adding, “We hate to beak it to you here, but stuffing a firearm in your holiday bird for travel is just a baste of time. This idea wasn’t even half-baked; it was raw, greasy and obviously unsupervised.”

Yeah…I got nothing.

Why would you think sticking a firearm in raw poultry wouldn’t get caught?

I mean, I get that people sometimes fly with food. That isn’t unusual in and of itself. Taking a local treat to someone as part of your vacation isn’t unusual. Maybe it’s a goody from a local bakery or a brand of treat only sold regionally. It doesn’t matter, that makes sense.

But a raw chicken?

I mean, chicken can be found pretty much everywhere. The only nation I can find that doesn’t have live chickens is Vatican City, which kind of makes sense. The only continent without chickens is Antartica, which also makes sense.

In other words, chicken is pretty much everywhere, so flying with a raw chicken is suspicious in and of itself.

Sticking a gun in it is certainly creative, yet “creative” and “intelligent” aren’t exactly synonyms. This falls into the category of “creative, yet stupid.”

Yes, the TSA caught it. How could they not?

TSA dude #1: “Hmmm. This is a raw chicken.”
TSA dude #2: “Uh…that’s weird.”
TSA dude #1: “Ya think?”

I mean, it’s a raw freaking chicken, for crying out loud.

I don’t know whether I should be more impressed with the cajones it took to try and pull something like this off or with the fact that anyoen stupid enough to think this would work can still muster enough brainpower to breathe.

And yet, here we are.

To their credit, TSA officials had a sense of humor about it. They know this was weapons-grade stupid and they ran with it. Yes, it’s pun-heavy, but how could it not be? I mean, I couldn’t resist doing that with the headline here, so I’m not exactly in a position to judge them negatively.

But just a tip, folks. Don’t travel with heavily-armed raw poultry this holiday season. Or any season, really. Yes, the TSA rules for shipping a gun are stupid, but stuffing that gun into a raw chick is even stupider.