BrewerSEA

Pumpkins are certainly fruit. Vegetable is such a vague/arbitrary word anyway.

They are classified as a type of berry, a pepo:

LMB01

A couple of years ago, my husband and I were going on a cruise over Halloween. We love to decorate and we wanted some real pumpkins for our cabin and costume contest. We knew they would get destroyed in checked baggage so we decided we would take them as carryone in rollerboards. We were positive we would get the past TSA as they might define the guts of the pumpkin as liquid. When it comes our turn at x-ray, the bags get stopped and the agent gets a quizical look on his face and we say, "yes, they are pumpkins". He says "ok" and sends them on through. We did not have to open the bag to show that the pumpkins were intact.

BTW - these were a huge hit on our cruise and are now a great travel memory!

bts09

Ok. I am definitely going to do this. I'm still laughing from this one.

Thank you everyone for the thoughtful comments. I think we've decided that as long as I: mark it as 3 fl. oz., don't turn it into a pie, am prepared for quizzical looks at security, and can correctly identify its kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species, as well as be able to produce a doctor's note, I should be ok.

I'll post back to the board soon with the outcome of my travels with the pumpkin. Hopefully, they will be dull.

MSPGabe

People often question if they can bring lobsters through the checkpoint. It, of course, depends on how they are kept cold.


Anyways...I usually tell them that as long as they have their.... crustacean exportation permit, which you need when bringing lobsters out of the state of Maine, you will be fine.

Usually gets a couple laughs.

Flyer girl

I routinely carry stuff from my garden in the summer when I visit my mother. I always carry it in my carry on. I have carried butternut squash, gourd, pumpkin, and watermelon. Whenever I do this, my luggage always gets pulled for a check. Sometimes they let it pass once they realize what it is and other times, they swab it for explosives. It averages 50/50 whether it gets swabbed, but my luggage always gets opened to see what it is. However, I have never had a problem getting past the checkpoint once they have examined it to their satisfaction. This included the time I hand carried 35 pounds of stuff from my garden in my carry on.

Fornebufox

Note that this year's weird growing conditions in the NE US mean that there's likely to be a pumpkin shortage this year. Some pumpkins might arbitrarily be deemed dangerous...

lili

Just mail it.

NEITHER RAIN, NOR SLEET . . . KEEPS MOM FROM MAILING PUMPKINS
Published: Thursday, Oct. 31, 1996 12:00 a.m. MST

Mary Busey doesn't just decorate Halloween pumpkins. She addresses them and mails them to her four grown children around the country.

She's done it for the past 25 years - 99 pumpkins in all, and all but three arrived intact. "They delivered those in plastic bags," Busey said this week.She likes to watch people's reactions as she waits in line at the post office with an armful of pumpkins.

"They just stand there and look at me out of the corner of their eyes," said Busey, who uses no boxes or wrapping.
© 2011 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

mikeef

Simpsons reference to follow:

Homer, you knuckle-beak, I told you a hundred times: you've got to sell your pumpkin futures before Hallowe'en! Before!

Mike

InkUnderNails

Thinking of my misspent youth here, I remember that it is quite possible to put quite a bit of non-watermelon liquid in a watermelon. Why would not a watermelon be as much a potential carrier of dangerous liquid as a sealed water bottle?

SATTSO

I'll tell ya what? Fill up a pumpkin or watermelon with some non-pumpkin or non-watermelon liquid and send it through the x-ray, and see what happens!

However, to respond to your statement, it would appear on x-ray.

InkUnderNails

You have seen spiked watermelons go through the x-ray?

That is some intensive party preparations for traveling.

Geek007

I had a friend in college who filled a small watermelon with vodka, and got it through security. Yet again this was in 2003.

4nsicdoc

You've never been to the World Championships of Punkin Chunkin, have you?
Google it.

SATTSO

No, I have not. Yet I know what pumpkins and watermelons (and other melons) look like on x-ray. And I know what liquids inside something look like. It would be easy to see. Now its another question if the TSO on x-ray decides to have it checked or not (sort of like seeing your LGAs in your luggage and not calling for a bag check).

4nsicdoc

I hate to inject (infuse?) some science into this but since the liquid is injected into the pulp of the melon and is absorbed isotropically by capillary action, there would be no line of demarcation between different linear attenuation coefficients, and electromagnetic emissions, whether x-ray or gamma ray, would not be able to discriminate between substances. Now if you didn't want to use the time honored method of using a syringe to infuse, and simply hollowed out a part of the melon, half value layers might change enough to show a shadowing. If you're really serious about the subject, the attenuation coefficient follows the Beer-Lambert law. And note, it's not the Vodka-Lambert Law. But it works for that, too.
If you want to confirm methodologies for successful melon infusion, check with the guys at Sigma Phi Epsilon at UTSA.