In the
local office of a
telephone company, there sits a big
switchboard that can have
thousands of lines connected to it. Each line runs to a
house in the local office's service area. If you're planning to explain how this is
not always true in states such as
Michigan, then go
get a life instead. For
convenience, the actual
connections sit
exposed to the air, so that they can be
made and
broken with simple
wire punchers. This switchboard usually needs to sit
untouched and
unattended for up to
months at a time, in certain
static communities.
However, it also needs to be resitant to the elements. After buying a few hundred of these switchboards, phone companies noticed that in certain areas, morning dew could create short circuits across some of the connectors, denying service to the respective customer. Rather than spend thousands of dollars apiece for new switchboards, snot caps were proposed as a solution.
A snot cap is a piece of black plastic shaped like a thimble, with a little post sticking out of the head. The body of the 'thimble' is filled with the same icky substance that Creepy Crawlers were made out of. Sticking a snot cap over each connection eliminated the dew problem. They were also fun to stick your little finger into, to play with the goop.
Snot caps were the only fun thing about working for the phone company.