How do you make them straight (without using a ribbon cable)? I thought I could, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to get the right pins in the right holes of the connectors without crossing them.

Another option I had was just to get a 12 inch extender cable, then switch the female pins/connector on one end for male pins. BUT, PPCs was out of the male pins, and I always like to do things the difficult way the first time a round