(WJW) – A man returning from his family’s Thanksgiving celebration was stopped by TSA officials over a “surprise” gift his grandmother sent him home with.
Actor and TikTok user Brett Gaffney shared the viral story on TikTik shortly after the holiday, while still at the airport. He said his grandmother had given him a briefcase as an early Christmas gift and instructed him not to open it until he arrived home.
“I was like, ‘What is in the briefcase? It’s super heavy.’ And she said, ‘Just wait till you get there.’ I was like, ‘Grandma, I’m going to the airport. Like, I need to know.'”
Gaffney, perhaps knowing how suspicious the briefcase appeared, joked in an on-screen message that his grandma was “trying to get me arrested.”
Gaffney explained that when he was ultimately stopped by the TSA, he was forced to admit that he did not know what was inside the case.
“So I go through security at the airport, and the machine goes off, and it gets flagged as it’s going through the conveyor belt. The guy tells me what’s inside it,” he explained in the video.
He then opened the briefcase to reveal a typewriter.
“Who am I, Tom Hanks?’ he asked, referencing the actor’s typewriter collection. “Am I going to go to the park and write a whole book with a typewriter? I almost didn’t get in the airport because of this typewriter,” he said. “Because they asked me, ‘What’s inside?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know … It’s a surprise.'”
Eventually, Gaffney did pass security and make it to his flight. In a caption, he added that TSA officials told him they had already inspected another briefcase/typewriter earlier that day.
Since the video went viral, Gaffney has provided updates on TikTok of him learning to use the typewriter and getting the right supplies to make it work properly. Users also claimed to have noticed a compartment on the inside of the briefcase, which Gaffney later inspected and found to contain a $2 bill.
“This makes sense, because I know my grandma,” Gaffney said, claiming he was sure she hid it intentionally. “In our family, if someone gives you a $2 bill, you don’t spend it, but you hold onto it because that’s a sign of good luck.”
