Hey, when I was about 10, I decided to make my own nightlight.

So I took two strips of spring copper and wrapped one around the screwbase of a little 110-volt lightbulb I had. THen I took the other strip and bent it in a way so it touched the center contact of the bulb base.

Securing the whole assembly with MASKING TAPE (you know the white paper stuff), I shoved it into an extension cord.

Then I crawled under my desk to stick the other end of the extension cord into a light socket.....

BANG!! [Linked Image]

Apparently the strip that had been touching the center contact slipped enough to touch the screw-shell, so it was a dead short. The female end of the extension got scorched.

My mom was on the other side of the flat, in the kitchen/dining room and heard the noise and saw the lightbulb in the room flicker and dim for a bit.

"What did you do now?" she said.

"Eeehmm....nothing" I replied and went bak to my room to quickly undo my mess. [Linked Image]

Then there was the other time when I was 13 and tried to remove the lampholder from what I thought was a deactivated old light fixture at school. With a screwdriver.

The tip of the driver touched the terminal screw on the lampholder (it was one of those open-bottom ones used for wall sconces) and the shaft touched the metal frame of the fixture. It got WELDED to the lamp!!

How they figured out it was me, I'll never know. [Linked Image]