Those darn short electric cords

I think that the guys who decide the length of electric cords must be a. clueless or b. sadistic. I haven't decided which quite yet. Why do I say this? Electric cords are always about a quarter inch too short. I have several surge protectors in the house, always a good thing when you have multiple computers in the house. Now, are these cords long enough? Of course not. The length is just right to force you to do your best Cirque du Soleil impression as you hang over the back edge of your desk (which is too heavy to move on carpet) trying to reach it to plug in the computer, monitor, speakers, Nintendo DS recharger cord, iPod recharger, desk lamp, phone base, and lightsaber night light.

I nearly had this conversation with my kids:
Me: Hey kids!
Kids (giggling at Mom's feet dangling off the edge of the desk): What do you need?
Me: Sit on my legs so I don't flip off the desk and get stuck doing an involuntary headstand behind the desk.
Kids: (fall over in laughter, imagining Mom getting stuck)

My biggest beef today was my coffee bean grinder. Whoever designed this a. does not know the first thing about kitchens and b. must not drink coffee. The cord, I kid you not, is 11.5 inches long. The outlet on my counter is about 8 inches above the counter top. This leaves me about 8.261 inches from the wall, give or take a few thousandths of an inch. Every try to reach across a counter at 5:30 in the morning with a scoop of coffee beans without spilling them? It's not happening for me. I have to do my finest Elastigirl impression in order to even reach the the grinder, much less use it conveniently.

Perhaps I'll plug in a surge protector by my coffee pot. That should give me about 2.23 more inches to work with.