All this talk on expanding one's power and electrical currents brings to mind a memory long forgotten.

It seems there was a young boy of, oh, 9 or 10. Let's give this person a name....Alan is a nice name.

It seems Alan was spooking around in his cellar one day and comes across a 'jen- yoooo - wine' 1920's era car horn, an Aahooogah horn. If you watch the old war movies depicting action in WWII you can still hear one, they were used as the old 'dive' signal on the submarines of that era, and would sound a melodious 'Aaaaahoooooooooooooga' when sounded. Very distinct, very unique.

This particular horn was designed to be operated on a 6 volt system, something not normally seen on today's cars (they use a 12 volt system). The lad soon found out that if one puts 12 volts into a 6 volt appliance, you don't get the melodious tone one expects...but an unholy shriek of outrage from one's prized horn. Does the tale end here? Noooooo, only beginning. Young Alan is not the brightest bulb in the candleabra by a long shot.

Alan soon finds that his father, in owning some classic cars, has a battery charger that produces the required 6 volts. (He also has 6 volt batteries, but it's a pain in the neck to lug a humongous 6 volt car battery to the cellar.) In the ensuing days can be heard the sounds of,

"Dive.....DIVE!!!"
AAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOGA!!
AAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGA!!!

over....and over......and over again, for HOURS at a time.

Verily I say unto thee a properly tuned aaahooooga horn can rattle the dust from the pipes....tis true indeed.

Alan's father, Lord of the Manor, did not like this, and it wasn't long before the battery charger had been.......'disappeared'...., as had every single 6 volt car battery in the household. No amount of pleading, cajoling, or bribery could bring them back.

"Ah HA!", thought the dimwitted Alan, " I'll outfox you YET!"

...and with an evil chortle, he disappears into the depths of the cellar.

Somehow, in my ahhoooogally challenged state, common sense just FLEW out the window. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, Icarus' father was SCREAMING, " Careful boy, You're flying too close to the sun!!" ...but I didn't hear him.

Locating an old, unplugged extension cord, I RIPPED the end off of it, leaving bare wires hanging, and these I carefully wrapped around the terminals of the old horn.

Holding the plug in one hand, next to the wall outlet, I glanced at the cellar door, and thought 'Ptah on 6 volts...I have 120!!' (not remembering my experiments with the 12volt system)

With a voice dripping with preteen sarcasm, I evilly yelled at the top of my lungs...

" Muuuuhahahaha......DIVE!! ....DIVE!!!!"

.....and I plugged that puppy in.....

...... the next thing I remember was laying on my back in complete darkness with my ears ringing and the sound of my brothers falling down the cellar stairs with my father swearing in the background telling somebody to go find the fuses.

The repercussions were awful. Once they found out I was actually alive and wasn't blinded by the armature exploding, the teasing commenced and lasted for years. I'm sure they're falling all over themselves at this very moment on whatever plane they're on, angelically peeing themselves remembering all this.... Oh yeah, the big 'gag' gift that year for Christmas was an ornate bulb type horn for my submarine....I didn't find that particularly funny at the time. They, however, thought it was hilarious.