I’ve given it a passing thought, a time or two, and I think I could do it, but then again, I’ve still got a few more years of life left... :-)
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A side note and thought on this... I remember a neighbor, one time in the long-distant past, told me how they drilled a little hole in the bottom of the glass meter and then they would put a pin (or a wire) which would extend up into the glass casing and stop the wheel from spinning around. They would do that for about half a month and then take it out again, when the meter was due to be read.... LOL...
They said it worked for them..., and I guess it would.
An electric water heater had a shorted element. 6 Amps was flowing through the cold water pipe! A clamp-on ammeter found the problem quickly.