One giant teddy bear won’t be heading home for the holidays, thanks to the Transportation Security Administration and an airline that flies out of Los Angeles.

The TSA posted a photo of a forlorn stuffed bear dwarfing the trash can it leans against in an LAX terminal. Security decided that the bear was too large to screen or bring onto the plane, and published the sad shot on Instagram to encourage people to check about oversized carry-on items ahead of time.

“Why does this gigantic teddy bear look so sad? He was abandoned by his owners at LAX after the airline and TSA determined that he was just too big to be screened as a carry-on and taken on the plane,” the caption read.

In defense of the agents who separated the bear from its owners: No passenger should try to bring this excessively large stuffed animal into a cramped airplane cabin. Leg room is already scarce enough.

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Write to Julia Zorthian at julia.zorthian@time.com.