#1. Obviously before 9/11 and so log ago, in fact, when there was often a technical stop in DRW on flights to Asia and beyond (maybe early to mid 70s). The gentleman in front of me was walking across the tarmac for boarding (in shorts and thongs) and had a slab of xx_X over his shoulder. Not sure how much he drank on the sector to BKK or HKG.
#2. While working in China in the mid-2000s, domestic flights often did not have seat allocation (or priority boarding) so you had to fight hard for a seat at all, especially an aisle or window. Hand luggage space was a premium always but, particularly between TAO and PEK, during soft shell crab season. Box upon box in the overhead, on seats and under them. The locals got mightily annoyed when I moved their boxes off a seat so I could sit down.
#3 A colleague of mine collected snow domes. I tried to get one from locations I attended for projects. While in AER (Sochi), I bought a small winter scene as a present. It made it through 4 seperate security screenings - two in Russia and one in Europe but not past security at MAN. The only upside was the officer put the dome on the bench after retrieving it from my carry-on and then pushed it off as my bag was passed back to me so it shattered on the floor. I made a quick exit but, I guess, it did prove to be liquid!