• doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    I’m gonna guess winter, hanging Christmas lights. People string up their lights and then realize far too late that they put two strands with female ends facing each other and instead of restringing they look for a male-to-male cord to bridge the gap.

    A little live wire shouldn’t stand in the way of holiday cheer, after all.

    • kassiopaea@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 days ago

      That would immediately blow the fuse in the lights and/or start a fire if the two strands were on different circuits that happened to be on different electrical phases.

      While I wouldn’t doubt that some people are stupid enough to do that, it’s actually summer that it’s done the most for because of storms and power outages, and people learn that backfeeding is a thing (that you shouldn’t do unless you absolutely know what you’re doing).

      • doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        I appreciate a good “um actually” but this really is about Christmas lights. People really are stupid enough for this to be something posted specifically around December.

        As far as I can tell from a reverse image search this is the original. (Not linking to the other place, DM me if you want the link for some reason).

          • doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            Never underestimate stupidity. Though I do think it’s at least not normally people trying to connect two strands that are themselves already live. It’s normally people who are connecting several strands together and started at the end not plugged in with the male end poking out, not realizing that this means when they’re done stringing and go to plug in they’ve got the female end and no way to plug it in.

            Left facing the daunting task of completely undoing all the work they just did, they try to look for something to bridge the gap without thinking through to the danger.