The dumbest thing you ever did to your stereo?

I carefully clean my first pressing of Gaite Parisienne, set it on the turntable to play, lower the needle, then go in to take a shower (with the door open). Shortly later the music is interrupted by Zrrrip! Zrrrrip! Zrrrrip!

I leap out of the shower and rush naked and dripping to the turntable. There is my daughter's cat, sitting on the shelf, batting the tonearm back and forth with its paws...

The cat lived. The record didn't.

I don't really know where to start. Back before I knew anything about stereos, I had an old Mitsubishi system with BALLS of power. Well, I know it got freaking loud, and in HS, that's all that mattered right? Well, I got a second set of speakers and this system was like 20 years old, no A/B so I just tied the speaker wire together and BOOM I have 4 speakers instead of 2. Now the parties were even louder and it ran fine. I used this set-up for about 2-3 years perfectly fine (I know now, I was down to a 4 ohm load on an 8 ohm reciever). Then I was in the market to get a new stereo when I got to college, so, what did I do? See what it took to blow up the old amp before I got a new one. ANOTHER pair of speakers later (now we're down to 2 ohms for those of you keeping track at home). This ran ok for about a semester, then durring a rather extended party, it finally died. The power supply was too hot to touch.

Long story short, blowing up the amp for no reason was the dumbest thing I'd ever done, but I was impressed at how long it lasted before I finally killed it.

Now that I'm all grown up, I couldn't imaging doing something like that again, oh well, I was young and stupid and no real bills to pay. But I did come out with a lot of good memories

I rolled the 12AT7's in my VTL mono blocks. I put in 12AX7's by mistake. Other than sounding like crap and feeling like a dork, nothing bad happened.

How about prying the drawer open on a CD player because an import disc was inside and the player wouldn't give it up? yep.
I agree with the "beers and vinyl don't go together", the vinyl saw blade took my Schuer microridge V to worhthless, $225 for stylus.
So when I hear folks say they wish they were "18" again, I just feel thankful that I don't have to be *that dumb anymore. Yeah, I used a butter knife do it, so i wouldn't really scratch the player, whew.

Tried workin' on on old Garrard Turntable, back in '76. Had the flu, could barely see, and didn't properly brace the TT when it was on its side. Managed to bump it, tipped it cver, and put a 30 degree bend in the tubular tone-arm just past the counter-weight.

Went back to bed, rather upset. All worked out well. Had a new Kenwood KP-5022A D.D. Table the next week. Something about that Kenwood that I loved...really great table for its day!