One of the most embarassing moments in my career. It was my first real job, hauling checks out of BUF down to CMH. Unpressurized, in the winter, with no experience, except that which was conveyed to me during the company's training program. First night out on my own, I'm getting St. Elmo's fire like crazy, all over my windshield, right about where the electric hot plate is. I am getting nervous thinking this thing is shorting out, and turn it off, on, off, on. I finally leave it off, get the windscreen nice and iced up, then towards the end of my flight, figure, well I've got to see to land, so I turn it back on to clear a spot for landing. When I get on the deck, line MX asks how the airplane is, and I start telling them, you guessed it, "this F***ing POS was arcing all over the place, shooting little purple fingers all over the windscreen" !! I have never seen a mechanic call more people over to here my incredible story of aviating with an obviously about to fall apart and burn airplane, what a marvelous piece of flying, you should go in and tell the Chief Pilot. As I start to walk away, the whole group, which now includes a bunch of other pilots, drops on the snowy ground just howlling. At least one of them was nice enough to grab me before I got to the CP's office.
Funnier than Sh**.