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My favorite true electrical story: The appliance store had delivered a new stacked washer/dryer to our new townhouse. After sliding the unit in place and plugging it in, one of the men grabbed the flexible vent hose and reached up to the aluminum vent pipe to slide it on. The other guy said "Wait a sec, touched the vent pipe with his tester and said "Hmmm, haven't had one of these in a couple of years." Someone had driven a nail through a hot wire into the vent pipe, lighting it up. They ripped off some sheetrock (drywall to you Northerners) and found the errant nail.

No one commented on my wisecrack about frenchmen. How about this: "Seen on e-Bay: '50,000 used rifles from France. Never fired. Dropped once.' "

Just stick an old screwdriver in there (you could ruin a good one if it is hot) and short it out first.

Not an electrician. I slap the screw driver across the wires quickly as the last thing before cutting or touching a bare end of either wire, after throwing the breaker. If not sure of the circuit, close all breakers; you may guess wrong. I have a partly burned thru screw driver from the 1950s. Oh yeah, about 5 years ago, I bought a cheap circuit tester, but I still do the screw driver thingee just in case. I do 220v, too.