Ah, the miracle of modern engineering. Forget cold fusion or Mars colonization; the pinnacle of human achievement has finally arrived in the form of a $16 “two-headed” USB-C cable. According to the hype cycle, this Anker 2-in-1 cable is a “game-changer” that will apparently save your marriage and solve the existential crisis of having two gadgets but only one outlet. Because, as we all know, buying a second $5 cable and a multi-port wall plug was simply too high a bar for our primitive civilization to clear.

Let’s start with the “Presidents Day Deal” of it all. You can snag this revolutionary tether for $15.99, down from $19.99. That’s a whole four dollars in savings. Truly, George Washington would be moved to tears knowing his legacy is being used to shave the price of a braided cord down to the cost of a fancy avocado toast. If you’re waiting for a national holiday to pull the trigger on a 20% discount for a peripheral, your financial planning is as efficient as a laptop trying to charge on a 5W airplane outlet.

The article claims this cable is the ultimate peacemaker for couples who “argue over who gets to charge their gadget first.” If your domestic bliss is so fragile that it hinges on the sequential priority of an iPad Air versus a MacBook, you don’t need a new Anker cable; you need a mediator and a surge protector. This cable doesn’t solve a scarcity problem; it creates a proximity problem. Since both devices are now physically tethered to the same six-foot cord, you and your partner are essentially participating in a high-tech three-legged race. Move your tablet too fast, and your spouse’s laptop comes flying off the coffee table. It’s not “convenience”—it’s a physics-based liability.

Then there’s the siren song of “140W passthrough.” This is the tech equivalent of buying a car that can go 200 mph while living in a school zone. To actually hit that 140W ceiling, you need a Power Delivery 3.1 wall adapter, which—spoiler alert—usually costs twice as much as the cable itself and didn’t come in the box with your iPhone. Most people will plug this into the dusty 20W brick they’ve had since 2020 and wonder why their “game-changer” is charging their devices at the speed of an aging turtle.

And let’s talk about “intelligent power allocation.” This is marketing-speak for “we’re going to throttle your devices.” Electricity isn’t magic; it’s a zero-sum game. If you’re pushing 140W to one laptop, great. The moment you plug in that second device, the cable has to play traffic cop. In reality, this often means one device gets the lion’s share while the other receives a “trickle charge” so slow it might actually lose battery percentage if the screen is turned on. It’s not “allocating power to the device that needs it most”; it’s basic subtraction.

Ultimately, we are being asked to celebrate a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist. If you have two devices that need frequent charging, the “innovative” solution is a multi-port charger, not a hydra-headed cable that forces your electronics into an awkward, tangled embrace. But hey, for $15.99, you too can experience the thrill of having fewer outlets and more reasons to trip over a braided cord. Happy Presidents Day—the Founding Fathers definitely envisioned a future where we’d be this easily impressed by a Y-splitter.