Electrical Problems 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Reading Darwin stories made me remember one of the dumbest things I ever did. I've always had problems with electricity, which I've never understood very well. I once changed the plug on a lamp cord and before I plugged it in to test it, went into the kitchen for some reason and came back with my hands wet. When I tried out the new plug I got quite a shock, but the lamp worked fine.
This isn't my oddest experience with lighting though. I was cleaning the range hood over my stove one day which had gotten all greasy. I had a bucket with dish soap and water in it and I was scrubbing away bent partially over kind of upside down when my brother dropped by to visit. He was sitting in a chair behind me keeping his eye on me while we chatted. My brother kept asking me if I should be cleaning the range with water and his question got me all excited. "How else should I be cleaning it?" I wanted to know. I hate getting dirty and here I was, a mess of grime and soaking wet from head to foot and there was my brother, sitting there all natty-looking and making back seat comments about how I ought to be doing this really disgusting job.
Well, it turns out that his real concern was that one of the hood lights had burnt out. I had taken out the old bulb but not put in a new one. As my brother pointed out, the socket was empty, and live. "Water and electricity don't mix, Kimi, he told me."
So I told him, in a really biting tone of voice "Yeah, that would be a problem if I were stupid enough to take my finger while I'm all wet like this and put it into the open socket," which was the last thing I heard for five minutes besides my brother shouting "Kimi" as if the house were on fire.
As I spoke, so I did. Matching action with words, I stuck my finger right in the socket only because at that moment I was more concerned with proving a point to my brother than with what I was doing. Submitted on 08/06/2002
Submitted by:
kim brooks wei
Reference:
my own story
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