It’s time to confess. I am an electricity addict. And I am not alone.

Having arrived early for my flight from Boston airport, the first thing I did after getting through security and going to my gate was to look for a plug. Did I need a plug? No. I didn’t *need* to use my computer, and in any case, my computer was fully charged. But I wanted to save the charge for the long flight to San Francisco. Did I *need* to use my computer on the plane? No. I am carrying a camera, an iPod with 2,699 songs on it, a book I’ve barely started, two Smithsonian magazines, and a portable CD player with not one but two complete books on CD. But I thought I *might* want to use my computer, so I wanted to save the charge. So I needed a plug. There weren’t many plugs at the gate. In fact, I found only one fourplex, two of which were used by airport kiosk equipment and one of which was being used by a young man on his computer. That left one for me. Shamelessly, I strung my wire around the back of his seat, muttering my “Sorry”s and “Excuse me”s.

Sure enough, I ran out of computer battery power on the plane. Dan was supposed to get in at the same time as me, but my plane is ten minutes early and his is an hour and twenty minutes late. So I have to wait. Good time to charge up the ol’ computer. Unlike BOS, SFO has plenty of plugs. There’s a twoplex on every structural pillar. And as I walk down the long corridor from my arrival gate to Dan’s I notice that almost every twoplex is in use by two plugs attached by snaking cords to two computers in the laps of two people sitting as close as they can to the juice. The end seat in a row, if possible. The floor if not. I begin to worry that there won’t be a plug for me.

But here at Dan’s gate nothing is happening. No one is here. I occupy a fine end seat in a comfortable, empty row. And–ah!–I am plugged in.