A Shocking Place to Stash Your Valuables

In another era, it might have been secreted behind a gilt-edged painting on a parlor wall. Or disguised behind a faux volume in your revolving bookcase. Or buried, even, in the backyard like so much pirate treasure.

But in this last year of the 20th century, there is a new high-powered kind of safe to hide your valuables. It is the electric wall socket.

According to its maker, Safety 1st Inc. of Chestnut Hill, Mass., the Secret Socket Wall Safe is the last word in home security camouflage. According to the pledge on the package, “There are many places a burglar will look for your valuables, but it won’t be inside a wall socket.”

Indeed. To even locate your Secret Socket Wall Safe, a would-be perpetrator would be forced to take a metal screwdriver to all the electric sockets in your house. And what a shock awaits the fool who attempts to dismantle the wrong socket!

Yes, installation is arduous, and it’s true that the safe can’t be installed at all in a wall less yielding than Sheetrock (you have to carve the hole in the wall yourself). But if you’re handy that way--and your valuables are worth the trouble--it’s a bargain at $13.95.

Of course, if you haven’t got that sort of money to spend, do you really need a safe?