Static electricity and door handles I have a pair of shoes, which seem to isolate me from the ground. In effect I'm gathering static charge and every time i grab an aluminum door handle, that current discharges and that hurts. Ouch.
I invented a way to workaround that: when I'm going to touch door handle, first I take my Skeletool (a stainless steel multitool) and touch the door handle with it. Sometimes I even see the small spark and hear the discharge and then I can touch the handle myself unharmed.
But what interests me is: why discharging through the multitool does not hurt? This is an electrical current flow what hurts and the current flows the same way even if I hold the tool in my hand. Tool has surely less resistance than human body, so it shouldn't change anything. But it does not hurt :)
Why?
 A: When discharging without a tool, the whole charge exits your body through a small skin surface area, say $0.1$ mm$^2$. 
When you hold a tool that surface is much bigger; perhaps $100$ cm$^2=10,000$ mm$^2$.
That means that the current flowing through neurons in that area is much lower, and perhaps low enough as to not be felt.
Pretty much the equivalent of spreading the same electric current through $100,000$ cables instead of $1$.
A: As you walk across the floor, the soles of your shoes attract electrons from the carpet, and those electrons build up all over your body.
Here is a mechanical explanation of the pain you feel when electricity escapes your body via a small area on your fingertip:
The excess charges want to find a way off your body, and if a doorknob becomes the path of least resistance, the air between your hand and the doorknob expands and becomes a plasma as the air molecules are ionized by charges escaping from your finger.  After the excess electricity flows out, air rushes into the expanded space with an audible "pop".  Your nerve endings are stimulated by the heat of the plasma and mechanical action of imploding air.
When the path is through a multitool, the tool and the doorknob absorb the effects of the air expanding, heating, and imploding.  Your skin does not participate in changes of the air through which the spark travels.  That is one reason there is no pain.  You effectively have placed yourself upstream of the effects caused by equalization of the electric charges in your body and the doorknob.
