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

[Larry Makoski W2LJ]

Two events in my life caused me to have a healthy respect for 
electricity.  The first occurred when I was 5 or 6 years old.  I was 
home  from school with the flu; and I remember that it must have been a 
particularly bad spell as Mom had a vaporizer going in my room.  One 
morning as I was getting better, she told me to unplug it for the 
daytime.  I pulled on the plug (not the wire!) and pulled and pulled and 
pulled; but it wouldn't budge.  Being somewhat mechanically minded, I 
decided I needed a lever to pry it out.  My sister's letter opener 
seemed like just the ticket.  Boy, the house went dark real fast, the 
letter opener vaporized and I nearly messed myself!  Dad was NOT happy 
with having to come home from work to change out the fuse in the fuse box!

The second incident came at where I work now.  Since incident number 1 
above, I had always had a healthy respect for electricity.  I repair 
professional photographic studio equipment for a living and am always in 
contact with stroboscopic packs which can deliver a flash up to 3200 
Joules.  Needless to day, I'm always very careful.  Then came the one 
day that I started to repair a flash head that a photographer tried to 
"fix" himself - couldn't; but didn't tell me that he tried!  I hooked up 
the head to a pack, held it in my hand and fired it.  Normally, the 
housing is grounded.  He had mistakenly wired "hot" to the housing.  I 
think I threw that flash head across the room with enough force to throw 
it through the wall!  My arm was numb for about 15 minutes; and after 
that, I always gave things a "visual" going over before trying them out. 

I still have a healthy respect for electricity and an even healthier 
respect for the fact that someone else's mistakes might cause me grave 
danger!

73 de Larry W2LJ