Most two-year-olds are curious about many things. But my youngest brother Johnny was consumed by three things, lamps, plugs, and screws. They dominated his life.
At age two, Johnny's favorite toy was a plastic case of little screwdrivers. He carried this with him everywhere and when ever he encountered a screw of any kind he un did it. He would take apart doors or anything that had screws holding it together.
Almost every day he patronized the metal strips that separated the carpet of the front room and the linoleum of the kitchen. This was the best place since there were so many screws all in a row. Johnny had extraordinary finger coordination and hand dexterity for a two-year-old. He would place one of his screwdrivers on the head of the first screw and turn away. Sometimes it was funny to see him carefully turning the screwdriver. He had to have his tongue sticking out his mouth in just the right way so as to do it correctly.
After taking out all the screws, Johnny would then carry the metal strip around the house. Even though he was very adept at unscrewing, Johnny still had trouble with screwing the screws back in. I, or my dad would usually help him when it was time to put things back together again.
My four sisters each had a little lamp by their bed. These were all the same except for the shade, which had a different pattern on each lamp. Johnny had always been fascinated by electrical plugs but these lamps were quite intriguing. You see, they had little screws holding them together.
He went to each room, got the lamps and carried them to an electrical outlet. Here he would plug each in. He was amazed how they lit up immediately. Electricity is truly a wonder for a two-year-old. After that, he proceeded to take the lamp apart. We tried to get him to unplug the lamps first but this didn't always sink in. Johnny got shocked more than once. It is a wonder that Johnny made it past age two. He had many close runs with electricity.
I soon became the official lamp-putter-back-togetherer. Johnny took the lamps apart and I put them back together. I didn't mind that Johnny took them apart as fast as I put them back together.
When Johnny plugged something in, it was like this: He placed his fingers on the metal prongs to get his grip on the plug and to guide it into the slots of the electrical outlet. He usually didn't remove his fingers until the very last minute. And sometimes he didn't and he would get shocked. Like I say, it is a wonder he made it past the age of two.
I tried to teach him that electricity can hurt you. I hooked up our (toy?) shocking machine to a big black extension cord we had. I was on one end of the house with the shocking machine end, and Johnny was fifty feet away on the other end of the house. After a while he couldn't resist the pug of the extension cord. He picked it up and got a jolting shock from the extension cord. All it did though was make Johnny cry and make me feel bad that I had shocked him. As far as any teaching about the dangers of electricity, Johnny was back playing with the lamps within the hour.
One Saturday, we all left the house for a short time. For some reason Johnny was left home alone briefly. When we returned, we found that the main 200 amp circuit breaker to our house had been tripped and all the power was off. We don't know how it had happened, but we looked at two-year-old Johnny and immediately suspected him.
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