[Elecraft] the fine line between "stupid" and "curious"

[Stephanie Maks]

When I was in my early teens I was working on some project or  
another, that used the mains power.  I remember I was always  
unhooking and rehooking it as I worked on it so I ended up just using  
a mains cord with an inline switch, that ended in a pair of aligator  
clips.

At one point I had it all hooked up and wanted to show my parents my  
project, so I pushed the button and something I'd installed  
incorrectly on the project vaporized with the surge of AC power.   
Unknown to me, this surge also fused the switch contacts closed.   
Dissapointed I 'turned off' the switch and grabbed the aligator clips  
(one with each  hand) to remove them from the circuit.  That was my  
first introduction to 120VAC in one arm and out the other.

It didn't knock me out but I sure jumped, and it left both hands and  
forearms numb for about 15 minutes.

Oh and needless to say, the folks were very underwhelmed with my  
electronics skills.  Happily they never did anything to try and put  
me off electronics, just encouraged me to be a little more careful.

My first exposure to elecricity though came when I was much younger,  
perhaps only about 5.  I had a little record player and one time  
while plugging it in, I was holding the little 2-prong plug wrong.   
Basicaly my thumb was touching one prong and a finger touching the  
other prong.  The player must have had a transformer or something  
that was hooked into the circuit because although I got some current,  
it was not the least bit uncomfortable.  It felt like my whole hand  
was being massaged from the inside.  Once I 'discovered' this, I did  
it again a number of times, as it was a bit of a kick.  I know I  
showed the 'trick' to my sister but I'm pretty sure I never shared  
that with the parents - I didn't want them to take away the record  
player.

73 de
Stephanie
va3uxb