[brian_cunnie]

I didn't put a key in an electrical outlet, but in Paris when I was a kid I was having trouble sticking the plug in the 220V outlet so I held it tight by the prongs & plugged it in & boy did that feel weird. I never did that again.

I never told my parents about it because I would have gotten yelled at.

At camp we put crickets on the electric fence, but nothing happened to them, so I grabbed the electric fence, and that was a powerful jolt. I never did that again, either.

[mPReDiToR]

Some childhood anecdotes...

One xmas when I was less than 5yo I jammed a knife into our 240v socket and blew the fuse on the Electricity Board side of the fusebox. They had to send an engineer out to turn the power on so we could continue cooking the turkey.

The other is from a sibling comment. With primary school, 10 years old, we went to the Lake District and were introduced to electeic fences by everyone holding hands with the person next to them, and the teacher explaining that he would touch the wire with the back of his hand to avoid muscle contraction. Because I was "that kid" I was placed at the far end of the chain, where I assume it tingled more. That was fun.

We used to put PP9 batteries on our tongues for tingles. Just for fun.

I do recall dangerously letting .22 blanks off with a brick and a piece of brick making an entry and exit wound through the outside fleshy part of my hand. Couldn't let mum know that I was even bleeding in case she asked why!

Touching the wires hanging out of the wall where the clock hung was fab, until I flew across the room and sat on the sofa unexpectedly. You really do learn respect for insulation at this point.

[MrYellowP]

> until I flew across the room

What? Why?

[efreak]

We had a broken arcade game at after-school, every so often someone would bump it and someone would have to reach around and push the switch that wasn't properly covered by the backboard in order to turn it back on. I reached around without looking one day and shocked myself. Today, it surprises me that it was using enough current to be noticable, and that it only needed to be pressed to turn on, not stay on.

[eric-hu]

Wait you went to a summer camp with an electrified fence? Is that common?

[Johnythree]

Very common in rural areas. Electric fences are cheap and easy to relocate.

But these are not the lethal electric fences that you see in trashy science fiction movies.

These are specially designed to put out a high voltage pulse which gives a nasty bite, but is basically harmless.

[dagw]

Sure I assume so, certainly ones I've been to. I mean the camp obviously wasn't using electric fences to keep the kids in, but the surrounding farmers where using electric fences to keep their cattle/horses/sheep out of the summer camp.