I've never once plugged in a new extension cord and
thought, "I hope this works."

I have - ever since I plugged something into a brand new extension cord
and ended up with a whole lot of arcing going on. Scared me half to
death as it was one of those "fancy" cords with 3 outlets on the end,
and clear plastic so you could see the little neon light in there to
show you it was live. The act of plugging in a tool caused one of the
parts of the outlet to shift inside the plastic and contact another
part. Needless to say I was not amused.

Goofy thing is that this of course was a more expensive cord while I
normally get el-cheapo extension cords that I treat almost as
disposable. A nick in the insulation and it gets cut in half for use
in other projects.

Dan