Twinkley Lights
At the time I was 10 and I had just received a new present from my mother a couple of months before that came in the form of a lovely sister (although after when she started talking I kept making enquiries if she could be sent to an orphanage because she was seriously pissing me off, but that's another story). I wanted to make her very first Christmas a memorable one so when my mother was out with her at the doctor's I decided to put some fairy lights up around the house.

I was living in the Far East at the time because my father got transferred there for a job and as a result the only fairy lights we had were those from 3 Christmas's ago, and these were antiquated fuckers that didn't have their own transformer or plug or whatever the fuck that makes them work, just a little dongle that had two copper spots that looked like it fitted into a bayonet light bulb holder. So, off I went to look for a lamp base where I could plug these into. Found the most suitable size that happened to be one of those old Black Tower bottles converted into a lamp base and unscrewed the resident light bulb and directly plugged it in. Bear in mind that it said 'DO NOT PLUG DIRECTLY INTO SOCKETS, USE TRANSBLAHBLAH', but no, 10 year olds know everything.

As soo as I plugged them in I felt a massive jolt and my hand was glued to the bottle base and I flew arcoss the room, unplugging the lamp in the process. My mother came back 15 minutes later to find me on the floor, clutching a Black Tower bottle for dear life and a string of (fused) fairy lights and the smell of singed hair emanating from me. Not a pretty sight.

I was smacked to within an inch of my life by my very livid mother, who kept telling me I could have killed myself.

And she very nearly killed me...
(Marmoset Bored bored bored of cnuting revision..., Fri 5 May 2006, 11:52, Reply)