Driving north along California’s historic and twisty Highway 1, we overnighted at the Big Sur Lodge in Pfieffer Big Sur State Park in, yes, Big Sur.
We rented a little cabin, which looked dodgy on the outside but was newly renovated and quite modern on the inside. Not surprisingly, there was no Internet access (or television or telephone).
There was electricity, but puzzlingly the outlets had these little brackets screwed over them. If I hadn’t had my extension cord for my PowerBook, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the big blocky Apple power cord into the outlet.
Does anybody have a theory as to why the Lodge would do this?
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I can’t tell from the photo but they may have had a piece of furniture in front of the outlet before and placed the brackets over the outlet to prevent it from hitting the items plugged into the outlet, like a lamp or TV. Of course it could also be a plot by all the non-Apple hardware vendors to block Apple power cords from plugging into specific outlets all across the US of A. Take your pick.
Your Apple power brick should have come with an extension that runs a regular three-pronged cord from the brick to the wall. Mine did, as did my wife’s, and we use ours that way all the time because of the extra reach. It would work fine in that outlety.
It does make sense from a furniture-bumping perspective, and maybe people’s big power bricks have been scuffing the walls too and they wanted to prevent it.
Yeah, that was my guess too. If there’s a piece of furniture that’s got to be moved back and forth when vacuuming, you don’t want it to keep smashing up against the cord for the lamp.
I don’t think it’s a furniture issue, as it’s right beside the sliding patio door, and nowhere near any other furniture.