Testing bulbs
My mate's brother-in-law (tenuous but I did know him) was going through a stage in the 90s whereby he'd buy stuff from auctions, mainly bankrupt stock, tart them up and flog them on. One time, he bought a box of assorted lightbulbs from the bankruptcy of a smallish electrical suppliers.

He set about testing them. About 400 of the fuckers. He very quickly realised (after about 7) that fitting them to the ceiling wasn't going to do his back and neck any favours, so he got a basic bayonet light fitting, screwed it to a plank and added a flex and a plug.

He soon got fed up of pushing them into the bayonet after about 50 bulbs and sought an even easier way to test them. So he took apart the light fitting, cut away the metal bayonet part and thus was left with just the bare metal pins which he could touch the bulb on to. It worked a treat, apart from being extremely dangerous.

Halfway through, he fancied a drink, so went to put the kettle on. Rather than switching it off for obvious reasons, he decided it'd be ok plugged in as nobody else was home.

He went back out to the shed after 10 minutes to carry on just in time to see a snail slithering up one side and then connect the terminals. He said it went very rigid and straight, protruding spectacularly far out of the shell, before the shell cracked and steam puffed out like a tiny kettle, followed by smoke and a nasty smell of burning gastropod. It then went black, shrivelled up and fell off. All within the space of 5-6 seconds.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 12:07, 1 reply)

and I bet
he had just run out of garlic butter
(whiskas loved by 8 out of 10 cats, Fri 11 Mar 2011, 20:19, closed)