I did similar.
My brother and I had an intercon thingy that was like two walkie-talkies connected by bell wire. I decided that replacing the 9V batteries was expensive for my poor mother and annoying to us. So, I snipped the battery clip off the cables and pushed them straight into the holes in a figure-of-eight plug for a tape recorder.
Luckily there was just a loud flash and a bang that left me feeling like the terrorists in the Iranian Embasy must have felt like shortly before their demise. I don't know whether my mother believed me when I tild her I'd broken the walkie-talkies trying to work out how they functioned but she didn't tell me off for it anyhow.
I didn't manage to set fire to the length of hose pipe we used instead, thankfully.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 18:13, 1 reply)

me too
b3ta.com/questions/bodger/post1116724
( real i'm not happy 'til you're not happy, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 22:34, closed)

I managed to get a shock across the heart
- one hand on live, the other on neutral.

I don't recommend it. Quite an effective way to learn to fly, though, as all the muscles in your body spasm and catapult you across the room!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 9:49, closed)

In my defence:
I was only around 8 at the time and they didn't teach about transformers until secondary school a couple of years later.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 12:33, closed)