This morning in preparation for worship, I had one of those "it couldn't be" moments.  I arrived early to make sure that everything was set up for the band and vocalists.  We started the sound check and something just wasn't right with the vocal sound.  I listened, took a quick glance at the channel equalizers for each singer, and everything looked right, but a quick check in the headphones let me know that I had a bad microphone cable.  But we don't have any bad microphone cables, do we?

As it turns out, I had the same problem a month or so ago and had thrown a specific type of cable away.  Someone had done the church a "favor" and fished it out of the trash can.  It ended up in the storage room with the other cables.  I guess that I could have repaired it, but the reality is that if a cable doesn't fail right at the connector that it can be very difficult to repair.  I usually throw the bad ones away and get another one.  I needed to throw this one away outside the building, I guess.

All of that to say that if you have a bad microphone cable, either set it aside for repair in a way that makes it obvious that it can't be used, or throw it away in a place where it doesn't end up back in the "good" cable storage without your knowledge.