The Spin of Electricity

Ben Franklin may have had the key to electricity’s powerful smells but he didn’t let on to us common folk. His adage, "If passion drives, let reason hold the reins", would have been more aptly phrased, “If electricity drives, keep your hand on the plug”. Kited up over other electrical inventors, he missed the chance to describe the sense of survival one has after a lightning strike, smelling the ozone mixed with Nature and all your hair standing on end.

Even Edison missed his chance to dwell on the smell of direct current dashing a poor elephant with capital punishment. No, the smell of burned convicts prompted the more humane (and antiseptic smelling) kiss of death from society. Tesla gave us alternating to stink up the unwary. The tingling feeling from a DC battery didn’t prepare one for the mess you could get into through those tiny holes in the wall. My first brush with electricity smells wrought by AC’s power occurred when I was still a boy.

Stringing the electric Christmas tree lights backwards and from the top down, I ended up with a female socket. I made a double male headed extension cord to correct my mistake. With no testing tools but my outstretched palm, I plugged into the wall and touched the other end. Suddenly finding myself kicked back on my can, sucking wind, the jolt constricted all of my muscles at once. My sisters laughed nervously until my skunk like response wrinkled their noses causing them to say, “Ewe”, and bolt from the room. The odor of ozone mixed with last night’s dinner, composted by me, was unmistakable.

There is an involuntary response from DC that is peculiar to but not restricted to lawnmowers. In the early days, an acceptable method of troubleshooting a gasoline engine that would not start was as follows. You could determine if the magneto or the spark plug was at fault by holding on to the top post of the plug while cranking the engine. The instinctual response is to draw back the favored leg and kick hard, if the magneto is working. The manufacturers response, at first, was to make the surfaces rounded and softer thereby reducing the instances of broken toes. Only later did they bury the spark plug so you couldn’t touch it without mechanic tools. The small odor of ozone was dampened down by sweat (which allowed for a bigger jolt) and usually drown out by oaths and other utterances flushed out by the shock.

Another bygone odor (maybe not completely) to mixing it up the wrong way with alternating current is the butterknife in the toaster trick. The ozone is tinged with burning bread usually, mesmerizing the wielder, if they are still hooked on, until the flames announce the demise of the appliance. There is nothing like the ineffectual fireman’s response without water.

I am ashamed to say that I allowed my wife to believe me the gallant in our courtship days when I fearlessly attached the leads from a rabbit ear antenna to the television set. I told my damsel, sitting on the sofa holding her hands together and fearing the worst, “I ‘ve taken the back off TV’s and gazed at their innards.” I made little noises like I was being shocked heightening her high esteem of my mastery of electricity. No ozone smells this time only pheromones in the air.