The last thing Stephanie Lambert expected was a refund from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for seized peanut butter.

But she got it.

Lambert was traveling from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh with her husband and their 6-month-old and 2-year-old children when a TSA agent singled out her family for additional screening. After the usual pat-downs and questions, discussion centered on the jar of peanut butter, NBCNews.com reports.

"He just really fixated on the peanut butter and a jar of apple sauce I had," she said. "I keep saying, 'It's not a liquid; it's pureed apples,' but we go went around and around.  He also screened my husband multiple times. I asked to speak to the terminal manager, but he never arrived. ... We were there 30 minutes."

Eventually, the screener let the apple sauce (and the jelly) go, but he drew the line on the peanut butter.

"I said, ‘Fine.’ I left the peanut butter, but I took down names," she said. "The screener was asking for my all my details, so I figured I'd ask for his."

She sent in a complaint after their travels with a copy of the receipt and eventually received the $3.99 back for the cost of the peanut butter.

"I think people really do need to fight for themselves," she said. "In this case, the peanut butter was important to me. I was thinking, 'Hey, I need that. If I have a crisis with a child on a five-hour flight this peanut butter may help me.’ I wasn’t hopping to Phoenix, I was flying across country and there’s no food on the flight for children."