Short in my system?

Thanks for all the tips.  I have tried touching a few things, like my anti static album brush, but it still happens.  I will look into losing my shoes or touching something else and see if that works.

Yes, static. Take off your shoes, walk barefoot. 

Your brush will only work if  it is grounded at the time you touch it. 

Hopefully you don’t live in an apartment sitting directly atop a power station??

I have pretty bad static in the winter when my furnace is running. I have a whole house house humidifier, but still have static discharge. A couple of weeks ago I had a particularly loud static discharge when I touched the lifter on my tonearm. There was a huge POP that came through my speakers, followed by a really loud hummm. Well, it took out the left channel in my Schiit Audio Mani 2 phono pre-amp.

So, here's the question: What is the best way to create a ground wire that I can grab/rub before touching any of the components in my system? I think I read in the past that the center screw hole in the cover plate of a duplex outlet was connected to ground. Is this correct? Can I just connect a wire to the center screw of one of the outlets connected to my system? If not, can I connect a wire to either ground lug on my turntable or phono pre-amp and just rub my fingers on the wire before touching one of the components in my system?