Ah, chargers. Those magical little boxes that zap life into our precious devices and then mysteriously vanish just when you need them the most. If my life were a detective novel, chargers would be the prime suspects in an unsolved crime spree: the Great Disappearance of 2023.

Let’s talk about the myth of the universal charger. Once upon a time, someone in a high-tech ivory tower declared, “Every device shall have its own unique charger!” Because what could be more delightful than owning a charger that fits precisely one device?

Need to charge your phone? Sorry mate, the charger you grabbed was for your pre-2015 electric shaver. Want to juice up the tablet? Looks like you’ve got the laptop charger, which, funnily enough, has an entirely different barrel size despite both being made by the same brand. It’s almost like they’re doing it on purpose.

There is an entire conspiracy here, folks. A shadowy cabal of tech wizards who sit around a polished table with twirling moustaches, plotting how to keep us tethered to their endless array of proprietary cords. It’s the ultimate string theory, really.

And don’t get me started on the chargers themselves. Some are so chunky they need their own special bag when travelling. Others look like they were designed during a particularly uninspired art class in 1983.

So why haven’t we all transitioned to the life of wireless charging? Well, for one, it only works if you leave your phone in one spot – quite contrary to the whole “mobile” idea. And for another, it has the charging speed of a tortoise on a leisurely Sunday stroll.

Of course, innovation gives us hope. USB-C was hailed as the saviour – one cable to rule them all. But my USB-C cable doesn’t play nice with my partner’s device because the wattage is wrong, or the moon is in the wrong phase or something equally nebulous. It’s like trying to use a universal remote that only works on certain channels – and never the one you want to watch.

The solution? A mass uprising, perhaps. An insistence on true universal chargers or, dare I say, a world where technology actually simplifies our lives instead of multiplying our cable collections. Because at this rate, I might need to rent a storage unit just for the chargers. And that’s the true crime, my friends.