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Two-Pronged Plugs: Infinite Frustration/Safety

One of the greatest household frustrations (in the minute frustrations category, that is) is reaching to plug two-pronged plugs into outlets. Two-conductor power cords are still prevalent in consumer and even commercial and industrial contexts. While it’s true that a grounding pin is an important safety feature in many power cords, it is not always necessary. In addition to its benefits as a safety feature, though, the grounding pin in a three-prong plug serves another purpose. There’s no guessing about

On the contrary, two-pronged, ungrounded outlets are much less forgiving. As a rule, I seem to always plug two-pronged plugs in incorrectly, which means that I always have to go in for a second try. Of course, most of the plugs in my house are positioned behind furniture or under tables, so going in for a second try also adds to the fact that I’m contorting my body into awkward positions. Why does it have to be so hard to plug in two-pronged plugs?

If you look at the average two-pronged plug, you’ll notice that one of the prongs is likely to be wider than the other. Cord set manufacturers design two-pronged plugs in this way in order to prevent their users from accidentally reversing the polarity of the connection they form when they insert the plug into a polarized socket. Two-pronged plugs are intentionally designed to make it impossible (or at least very difficult) for users to make this mistake. As annoying as it can be, it’s an important safety feature, and it’s almost always an absolute necessity in the absence of the grounding pin. I suppose the solution to my problem would be to just look more closely each time I go to plug in a two pronged plug. After all, I’d rather experience that temporary frustration than cause harm to myself or my devices.