I recall hearing of a case where a child decided that a grilled cheese sandwich would fit in the VCR and tried it out.
Over 20 years ago one of the guys I worked with asked how hard was it to fix a VCR. I told him that usually it was something simple. He bought the manual and then came to me and asked for help. I took a look at the VCR. Sure enough, it would not work. Then the next day I was at the airport and noted a VCR someone had thrown away. It turned out it just had a tape jammed in it, so I took care of that and then cleaned the heads the way a guy from Nielson told me, using rubbing alcohol and a Mr Coffee filter. Then it worked fine; I took it to work and told him that I had fixed his VCR but had to modify it from a Magnavox into a JVC. He was delighted; his TV was a JVC and the TV remote worked with the VCR. Then I found that all was wrong with the one he gave me to fix was that it needed a new belt. I had an assortment of VCR belts because the company I ordered belts from had found that at less than $1.00 each they could not make much on them, so they made you buy a package containing just about every VCR belt ever made. Replacing the belt with one I had from that ridiculous assortment fixed it.
This is how you fool people into thinking you are a genius. Admittedly, there are drawbacks to this. When I was in CA one of the guys I worked with was trying to upgrade a computer that he had borrowed. In the process he managed to induce a short that resulted in one board with about 50 ICs on it look like a bomb had gone off. He got out the schematics and replaced the fried components but it still did not work. He asked for my help and I hated to tell him the truth, that it was hopeless; figuring out what is wrong with a Heathkit or a 1979 Corolla was a whole 'nuther thing from fixing a computer. So he came over to my house and while I waxed my car I gave him instructions on what to test. In the process of doing that we found out that the IC he had vaporized and replaced had no power going to it. He did not realize that the computer tech data assumes you know the DC power goes to Pin 7 and Pin 14. We added jumpers to an adjacent IC and the board worked when it was reinstalled. I fooled 'em again!
Either that, or I am a genius, which seems very unlikely in that I never get paid anything for this kind of stuff.