- Many monitors self-discharge. Not that this means you shouldn't still care, but the difference between a mostly-discharged tube and a fully charged one is significant. But that's why some monitors can pop louder than others.
- Tubes WILL regenerate some charge after you discharge them. They can build up charge again in as little as a few minutes, enough to give you the equivalent of a good static zap. Not enough to hurt you, but the real risk is what you do involuntarily when you're startled by it. That's when you drop things and whack things unintentionally. So always discharge the anode hole again, right beforehand, any time you're going to do anything near or around it. Even if you 'just discharged it', as it only takes a few minutes to regenerate residual charge.
- To get the anode cup off, push the cup sideways, tilt it at an angle to get one prong out, then the other will come out.
- If it's a monitor that you know self-discharges, or it's one you've already discharged, it's possible to get the anode wire out of the hole without touching anything that will zap you, by grabbing the back of the anode cup and removing per above. YOU SHOULD STILL DISCHARGE THE HOLE IF YOU'RE GOING TO TOUCH IT. But this can be a useful trick in a pinch if you're just swapping out a chassis on a self-discharging monitor. And you really only want to do it on monitors that you know really well, and that you know self-discharge. I shouldn't even be saying it, but it can come in handy.
- If you want to be 100% safe, always discharge the tube, always treat any tube as if it's charged, and always re-discharge any recently charged tube, whether it's been sitting a few minutes or 24 hours.
It's possible to get comfortable with HV, but you never want to get TOO comfortable, and you always want to respect it. When you fail to do so is when you get zapped.