Apple’s new cables have ruined my life. Welcome to Charging Cord Hell.

Not so long ago, there was peace in my accusatory kingdom. I had multiple iPhone chargers in important places (beside the bed, bed, desk, kitchen counter). Sometimes the mini-USB was integrated into Kindles or other portable devices. Everything was consistent, simple, and easily accessible.

But in the last year, it’s like I descended into Charging Cord Hell. Cords are constantly being moved from one to the other, and I find myself reaching into the kitchen drawer for something that was as bulky as an iPhone charger – and coming up empty.

There are several reasons for my hell.

Some of it is my fault, I’ll admit. I had the idea of ​​adding a few more children to my family. No one tells new parents that one of the biggest changes in their lives will be that the balance of the charging cord will be completely removed. Not only do you have a bunch of new devices (baby monitors, sound machines) that take up charging space, but when they start to break down, you may find yourself with a hellbent agent to deal with. pull the cords out of the wall socket. . You may need to prepare all your charging equipment.

My kids are out of the baby stage, but now they have their own devices to charge. There are tablets, walkie-talkies, random electronic toys, an AI powered surgical animal developed by Grimes that uses USB-C. It’s no surprise that I found my iPhone charger on the kitchen counter removed, and in its place a giant remote-controlled charging truck.

I take personal responsibility for this part of the problem. But it’s not just me. Tech companies have some responsibility, along with a scapegoat we can all agree to be annoyed at: the European Union authorities.

Let’s start there. In 2022, the EU passed a law that said all phones, computers and cameras must have USB-C chargers by 2025. That meant that Apple, which used its own charging cables Lightning for iPhones, iPads and AirPods, will have to agree and start. making new devices compatible with USB-C. (2023’s iPhone 15 was the first iPhone to use USB-C.)

This means many other new devices, like the off-brand theragun knockoff I bought at TJ Maxx, now use USB-C to charge.

But everything is still not so simple. Now, I have USB-C cables on the other end and they go into a standard USB brick. Some are USB-C on both sides and require a USB-C brick. Paying for my new fake Theragun (which I don’t recommend; I don’t know how good the real Theragun is, but this knock didn’t relieve my sore hip) caused a complete breakdown of the phone my electric one is next to the bed.

This is probably a familiar experience for you: having a device, a cable, and a charging brick, but not the right combination of the three. Maybe you’ve been running around your apartment or house, rummaging through cables and pulling chargers out of some sockets (which you’ll regret later) or left something to charge where not to charge (which you will forget later).

Another reason is technology companies. In 2020, the iPhone 12 was the first to go without a charging brick, apparently to reduce electronic waste. At that time, I wasn’t too crazy: I was already busy charging the cables and bricks of my previous purchases. When I got a new device, I usually didn’t even bother to remove the plastic seal from the new brick and throw it in the drawer. Ten years of iPhone ownership had left me with plenty of charging bricks.

But slowly, over the past four years, my charging brick inventory has dwindled. I imagine this is what it must have been like to live in the Midwest in the late 1800s, and see flocks of millions of Passenger Pigeons, so large they could darken the sky for hours. a lot, then you see this creature disappear after many years. .

At one point, my husband bought a few multi-chargers, one brick that could hold several cables at once. One of them broke, and we still have several chargers of the Anker brand, but it has a big problem – it tends to come out of the wall (according to The Verge, Anker is still reprogram its plugin to resolve this issue).

Yes, buying new multichargers is a logical answer to my problems. Please don’t email me and tell me this. I realize that this is a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it, that is, I think, more than a problem that cannot be solved at all. But I don’t like to buy these – they are not cheap! Most chargers sitting in my car from Amazon are over $80. It’s not a lot to pay for peace of mind, but it’s a lot to pay for something I was getting for free.

I know I’m not the only one rotting in Cord Hell. I know there are other people like me. Maybe you too. Responsible device owners who haven’t changed how many devices we use, but suddenly we find ourselves looking for the right plug, arguing with their partners about who has the low battery and the need to the larger charging plug is next to the sofa.

I see you. I hear you. You are not alone. We have strength in numbers, we don’t, uh, strength.