Four Flyers Eat 66 Pounds of Oranges Instead of Paying Extra Luggage Fees

It happens whenever I fly with my wife. As we're about to go through airport security, she holds up her water bottle and asks, "You want some water?" The truth is that I don't—if I wanted water, I would have drank some at a more convenient time—but I get it: We're not allowed to take water through, and a bit of hydration is a better option than dumping water on the floor. But I certainly wouldn't have the same reaction if my wife turned to me and asked, "You want 66 pounds of oranges?"

That's essentially what happened at an airport in Kunming, China—an incident that's gone globally viral apparently after video landed on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo last month. According to China's Global Times, four passengers downed about 66 pounds of oranges in less than half an hour after being told that traveling with the fruit would require a $46 luggage fee.

Telling the paper that figuratively eating the cost of the oranges was "more than they could afford," the passengers instead ate the literal fruit. "We just stood there and ate the whole thing up," one passenger was quoted as saying. "It took about 20 to 30 minutes."

How the men feel about their newfound fame isn't clear, but they did have thoughts on oranges. "We never want to have any oranges again," one of them was quoted as saying, adding that the choice to binge eat the citrus left them with ulcers in their mouths.

That said, tales of passengers questionably choosing to consume items before going through airport security rather than throw them away are nothing new, and though these men's story is one of the most bizarre based on pure volume, at least ulcers aren't as bad as what happened at a Chinese airport back in 2015: Faced with losing her bottle of Cognac, a woman chugged the entire thing instead. Turns out she didn't have to—because she became so intoxicated she wasn't even allowed on her flight.