Newfie, you will appreciate this "sea story" from the good old days in the USCG. This was the early 1970's when the USCG was part of the then brand new Department of Transportation, but had not yet moved USCG HQ from the US Treasury offices in downtown Washington DC.
I was a newly-minted ET3 (just promoted from SNET) when I was told that we were getting a new watchstander and that I was to personally train the new guy. Then to my surprise what showed up after the mail plane delivered him was TT2 Walker. "TT" of course stood for "Teletype Technician" and it was a dying rate, they needed so few that they had shut down TT "A" school. TT2 Walker had just been demoted from TT1 Walker, you could still notice the unfaded portion on his blue chambray shirt sleeves where the third chevon used to be. He also had an impressive full beard and a hangdog look.
Later that night I had bought TT2 Walker a couple of brews at our bar "The Swinging Oozik", and his tongue had loosened.
Aside: The Walrus Oozik bone we had hanging above the beer taps looked like this. The Walrus is the only mammalian species to possess an Oozik, which probably comes in handy when the male walrus has to mate in near freezing water or in snow (or wherever walruses mate).
Back to Walker's story. He had just bought a new townhouse in Maryland, and pleased his wife to no end, because she was now living next to friends and family. So she and the two kids were still in the townhouse. Walker himself had joined me at one of the most infamous duty stations in the USCG, "PTC" - Port Clarence, AK, just 40 miles or so from the Arctic Circle, and N of Nome, AK.
I was there because I had already figured out that I wanted out early and had taken them up on a "Six Month Early Out" for ET's who volunteered for certain undesirable duty stations. Walker I was guessing was not there by choice, and my guess was right.
In the one floor of the downtown US Treasury building that comprised the "holiest of holies" USCG HQ, there were two offices. One was for the USCG Commandant, the Admiral with more stars than anybody else. The second one, right next door, was for the senior enlisted man of the USCG, the one called "Command Master Chief of the US Coast Guard". These two had decided between them that they wanted a teletype machine in the hallway midway between their offices, and that they would assign a very attractive blonde female Yeoman to sit near this machine, read the messages through the locked cover, and decide when to interrupt these august personages with the teletype message.
Walker had gotten the work ticket to install the teletype machine, complete with a special shroud that was painted the special color that matched the "bulkhead" color. Walker was told where to place the machine, and to route the wiring invisibly, and he had done this over the course of several hours while admiring the blonde. The power cord was the last piece of wiring to get tucked along the wall, after testing the machine. So Walker disconnected the machine end, plugged the plug end into the wall socket, and carefully and neatly routed it almost invisibly underneath the wall conduit that ran between the TT machine and the wall socket, using cable ties. He was of course anticipating an "attaboy" endorsement from his Chief, plus the two men in the nearby offices who had wanted the machine. Apparently the blonde then coughed or did something else to cause her impressive breastworks to jiggle distractingly, just as Walker decided to remove the three feet of excess power cord. So, forgetting that he had plugged in the plug and that the cord was live, he cut through it with the "diagonal cutting pliers" that we called "dykes".
There was an impressive flash, and the US Treasury building went dark. The circuit breakers for that circuit, the sub panel for the entire floor, and the main building breaker all tripped at once. Twenty four hours later, TT2 Walker had arrived at PTC, after it was explained to him that if he "volunteered for isolated duty" he would earn enough extra "isolated duty pay" to make up for the TT1 to TT2 demotion, and continue to make mortgage payments on his new townhouse. He would spend the next 12 months reflecting upon his fate, earning back his 3rd chevron, and hopefully becoming wiser, and of course: without sleeping with his wife every night.
Now the traditional "sea story" ending. I swear that this is all true.