Last week, I was at MEL T3 to catch a domestic flight to NTL (Newcastle, a little north of Sydney). All summer, a local brewery has been running a fantastic temporary beer garden outside T3 called Terminal 3 1/2. They have had various food trucks in residence, and when I was there, it happened to be this gourmet hot dog truck which I had been wanting to try.

My boarding time was 11:45 for a 12:15 flight. The truck didn't start taking orders until after 11:30, but I wasn't about to walk out of there without my long-awaited hot dog. My order was only ready at 11:40, which meant that I had to run to pass security and get to my gate.

Needless to say, I wasn't able to eat this thing at all while running, juggling a laptop bag, and wheeling my cabin suitcase. And it was sitting in an open paper tray, so I couldn't just shove it into my bag. I asked the officer if I could bring it through. He jokingly said, "Either you eat the whole thing now, or you give it to me to eat!".

He helped me put the hot dog in its own plastic tub, carefully covered with another plastic tub to avoid getting the sauce smeared all over the scanner, and through it went. On the other side, I got randomly picked for an explosives check, which meant that the hot dog got swabbed for explosives too...