I will admit, when I was a lot younger, I did NOT have the proper respect for the the power of electricity. I was that toddler who was never given any metal cutlery, because I’d take it the nearest power outlet because I thought it was fun. Eventually my parents just put shock protectors on every single outlet, so I couldn’t get my wish of never making it to double-digits. Fair enough.
I still think of that whenever I need the services of a residential electrician. I see them going around with all their protective equipment, taking care over their work, and I flash back to my toddler self trying to jam metal objects into power outlets under the impression that it would cause something magical to happen. I bet that’s probably the first thing you learn NOT to do in electrician school. You all sit down, the master electrician clears their throat, they hold up a fork and they say “Okay, first things first: who can tell me in which part of the home this fork does not belong?” and everyone hopefully gets it on their first go. If they fail that question, then it’s a great way to weed out the people who didn’t have the sense to become electricians in the first place. You have to know the basics, otherwise you’ll meet a sorry end working on some big transformer project, and then it’s all over the news, making bad PR.
And I’ve watched my toddlers. I most definitely have watched them, because my those are my genetics and thus the same weaknesses, but they just don’t seem interested. Maybe it’s a generational thing. In any case, there haven’t been any incidents, and I keep vigilant in case they go for it. Also, before they were even born I had some electricians near me in Bayside come in and shockproof the whole house. No chances. I myself might get the strange urge again…who knows?
-Hayley