TSA watchlist, here I come
So I’m packing for my flight to Beijing last night. I decide to wear my running shoes on the flight to Tokyo since I have a five hour layover there and can workout at a nearby gym. I get to the airport this morning and as I’m standing in line at security it hits me. These are my robo-shoes. The shoes I hacked (literally) to include the Nike+iPod pedometer. Not good.
I could see it all happening before my eyes. A vigilant TSA employee sees something odd on my shoe x-ray. He asks me to explain.
“Well, sir, see this thing in my shoe is a transmitter.”
A single eyebrow raises. “Continue.” He presses the silent alarm button.
“You control it from this remote here.”
“OK, can you show me?”
“Sure,” I say pulling out the orthotic insert. “See this is where I drilled a hole in the gel insert to put the transmitter in.”
“Gel, did you say?”
Gulp.
OK so thankfully that was only a vision. But the trickier problem was finding a place in line to take my shoe off, disassemble it, and pop the transmitter out without causing a panic in the line. Hi there, excuse me, sorry to bump you — just fishing a small device out of a hidden compartment in my shoe. Nothing to worry about.
Oh, colored terror alert scale! Is there any limit to the ways you can entertain me?
Posted on September 16, 2006 to the category called Travel .
