Bob wrote:
HeyBub wrote:

Remember the old Christmas tree lights where one bad bulb in the
string caused all the lights to fail?

You've got pretty much a similar situation here. One outlet has
failed to do its part.

The only similarity is an open circuit. Old Christmas lights (and
newer miniature light sets) feature a series circuit where the same
current flows throughout the circuit. If a lamp is removed the
entire string goes dark.

North American house wiring has the devices on a circuit connected in
parallel, daisy-chained through each device down the line. If
connection to one device opens up, everything downstream goes dark.
Often the cause of this is a "backstabbed" device with a loose
connection.

Another difference is that Christmas tree lights were generally
multi-colored. And they were lights, not outlets. And you only sometimes put
them on a wall.

All in all, my example was a ****-poor analogy.

I'm going to sit in the corner and feel shame.