Once when I boarded a flight I noticed one of those multi-country mains power sockets next to a 2-hole headphone socket. They were arranged and aligned in a way that made it obvious that a 2-prong headphone cable would fit in the power socket. I took a picture of it and put it on Facebook before taking off.

After a nap I actually did put on headphones and plug them into the power socket by mistake. Luckily nothing happened.

Would need a complete circuit. So unless you’re sticking in both ends of one cable to the same outlet…

I look at US outlets and wonder about shock hazards.

The USB-C plug would be both too tall and too wide for the hot/neutral part of the outlet, and too wide for the ground portion.

So, no?

On my computer, the USB-C port is at the back -- one time, I shorted the motherboard out due to trying to insert a USB-C cable without looking. Only did it once, but learned my lesson.

Eww that's weird, ok in your case you are out of luck. That's pretty strange though, I have a ton of USB-A devices here and they are all in line with the way I outlined. So that's a bit of a surprise but it may well be an exception.

As for the ones that are sideways: the 'bottom' of the case is the bottom of the motherboard, so if you think of it that way it might still work for all but the top side ones.

We live in a right handed universe so even sideways has a correct answer.

The motherboard has an "up" direction if you lay it out flat.

Normally speaking: right. Because the circuit boards are usually on the left. If they are not you're out of luck.

might be a cheap cable.

Of course it's broken. It also won't power on unplugged, even with a full battery.

Definitely not googles finest device.