We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Ronald Raygun
saying something like:

Why not do it the other way round? Poke the socket end through the reel's
side holes, without an extra 6 feet. Then just wrap the whole rest of it
round the reel, ending with the plug. To use, place the reel near the
equipment you want to power, and un-reel as much as you need to reach the
socket in the garage (or plug it straight in in the garage and start
unreeling towards the equipment).

Which is exactly the way I did it 20 years ago with two diy reels, using
orange lead and welding wire reels. Over the years the brittleness of
the plastic reels has shown up, but on balance they've lasted well
enough, including a decade of hard professional use.