Magic Smoke 2020-10-05

I can think of every occasion when I let the magic smoke out of the wires. There really haven't been that many.

The first time was grade 4. I let the magic smoke out of the entire school.

I had just been taught about conductors and insulators and felt an experiment was in order.

I went back to the cloak room and put on my rubber boots (insulator right??), although I briefly worried about the steel shanks. However, I reasoned that they were surrounded by rubber.

Next, I needed a power source. I went to the back of the room and pulled the plug for the record player part way from the wall, but left enough in that the record player still had power.

Finally, I needed a conductor. It had to fit between the prongs of the electrical plug. My friend's housekey seemed the perfect thing, but his mother had told him not to remove it from the string about his neck upon pain of Death! And he was afraid of his mom!

I succeeded in welding my friends house key to the record player plug. Dead short. Voomp! Since his mom had told him never to take it off, I had to make him lean in quite close. It was on a string (fortunately, also an insulator!) around his neck when all the lights went out and the entire school fell suddenly quiet...

I don't remember a beating, but I had so many back then, it's a blur.

I do remember thinking people were giving me the same kind of attitude as when I pulled the emergency stop cord on a train just out of London, UK. That experiment didn't go well either...

I was not a bright child. And now I've grown up into... not a bright adult. Ta da! :-)

p.s. after I first posted this I remembered a detail: my friend we not allowed to play with me anymore.