Shocking!

OK – did you know you can actually do quite a bit of stuff with electricity and electrical ‘stuff’ without turning off the electricity?  Really – just a matter of not touching too much stuff at the same time. Easy right? Black is hot, white is neutral, green is ground.

For instance, the project I had been planing was to replace two outlets, switch from two prong to three. Easy. Remove the old one. Add a ground wire by screwing into the metal box. Replace black and white wires, one at a time, being careful to not grab  both sides of the new outlet by the black and white wires. EASY!

Well, mostly easy. Old, solid copper wire can be kinda stiff. Trying to maneuver them to the places you want – the terminals on the sides of the new receptacle can be especially hard when you buy a low-cost (cheap ass piece of crap) receptacle.  Then you have to hold the damn thing, twist a bit so as to apply pressure to hold the bare end of the wire where you want it while attempting to screw in the screw that is to hold it in place.

This sounds so freaking EASY! And most often is. Unless, just as you think you have the screw tight enough, the bare end pops out since the cheap ass part you have is not doing its job. You forget a bit about where your fingers are as you try to re-maneuver the loose wire into place again. One finger is touching the white wire on the other side. Then, anther finger touches a black wire – completing the circuit and – shocking the same fingers just mentioned.

I did this four times, lightly. That is, small, light short shocks that only served to remind me I was being foolish and to pay more attention. I am quite surprised it did not work well enough to keep me from the two really not too light shocks. The kind that make you say, holy crap, no wonder this crap kills some people!  Electricity is freaking dangerous!

The other scary dangerous part came when I had to push that low-end piece of electrical equipment back in its hole. One of the old solid core wires decided to break. Barring its solid self enough to touch on the metal box it normally lives in.  There was this sound, like something from a Frankenstein film. BIZZZEPT!!  Along with large sparks and the smell of melted wire insulation.  Nice addition to an already long and bothersome process.

Finally, some stupid amount of time later the damn thing was in and whatever I plugged into it worked. So – at least that part was good.  I put the other low-end receptacle in a drawer. I went and got one for about three times the cost of the first one, still under five bucks.  In less than fifteen minutes, with no shocks light or large, no sparks or smells, it was in and whatever I plugged into it worked.

So – did I learn to turn the power off to safely work on electrical items? No. I did learn that saving two-fiddy is just not worth the pain and aggravation sometimes. A damn good lesson yet still, I learned something not quite as obvious as you might think.

Shocking!

A V