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?