I created a problem for myself late last year. I drove almost nine hundred miles and left my laptop’s power supply at home. It seemed like I had three choices.

• Drive to the local Fry’s (or similar) and buy a new one
• Have someone go find my power supply and ship it to me
• Order one and wait for it

I checked the websites of a few local stores. My gargantuan laptop requires a rather huge 120-watt power supply. As it turns out, these are quite rare and the only one that might have existed locally was pretty expensive. Some quick math told me that I could have one delivered over night for a good bit less.

That left me with two options. I’ve been saying for years that I should have a spare, universal laptop power supply that I can just keep in my laptop bag. This seemed like a good excuse to get one.

I ended up ordering this “Syba 120W Universal Notebook AC to DC Power Adapter with 11 Power Tips”. I was hoping to find one with a USB charging port, but there wasn’t really a ton of selection at 120 watts. Also, in agreement with the pictures on Amazon, the charger actually has the brand name “Spyker” on the side.

I’ve had it for nearly a year now and so far it has been working just fine with my HP DV8T laptop.

The box has a list on the back specifying which tips work with certain makes and models of laptop. I had the brillant idea to take a picture of the list before I discarded the box. I should have looked at the picture first.