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I usually have a small stash of AAA cells, for the few devices I regularly use that are powered thus, and a larger stash (actually it usually turns into multiple stashes) of AA cells, mostly for photo strobes and a few other things.
Whenever I need AAA cells, I can remember where I put the AA cells, or stumble across them quickly while searching for the AAA cells, but the AAA ones hide from me. And whenever I need AA cells, I can quickly lay my hands on all the AAA cells I don't need then but had been looking for a week ago, but can't find any of the packages of AA cells that I know are in multiple unknown locations in the house.
Oddly enough, the "battery box", which is usually the first place I look (because, after all, the plan is to keep most cells/batteries there most of the time except for small numbers packed with specific equipment as spares for various outings, always seems to have the wrong size in it. (I have not tested this to see whether the C cells in the battery box turn into D cells when I need Cs and vice-versa; I'm not even sure what the 9V batteries would trade places with, but at least the button cells (A76, S76, and, uh, that 3V one that's basically a pair of S76 cells in one package) remain what they're supposed to be, or near enough. (If I need an S76 right now and find an A76 instead, it'll do; it just won't last as long.)
As frustrating as my personal version of the Canadian Curse is when it's happening, I can at least take comfort in knowing that it only happens to me every few weeks, not every time I pick up a package of something every day like my Canadian friends. So I trade increased effort expended per invocation (how much time does it take to turn the cartonaround?) for decreased frequency.
But at the moment I'm frustrated enough to babble inanely about it online just to get it out of my system. Either that or I'm way overtired from my gig earlier and simply lack the awakeness to realize that I should be asleep instead of typing. Or both. (I'd ask which is worse, posting-while-exhausted or posting-while-drunk, but I know there are people entertained by what comes out of my brain when energy is diverted away from the output-filters. ("I canna wring more power oot of these engines, Cap'n. Ye'll hafta choose between powerin' the shields or the phasers, unless ye wanna divert power from life support." "Full power to the fingers, we'll risk going without self-censoring until we manage to disengage, or we fall asleep at the keyboard!") Woof. Maybe not such a great idea after all, but what is art without risk? ("This is art?" "It's entertainment. That counts." "This is entertaiment?" "Well, somebody will be entertained. Now shut up, 'cause I used this routine the last time I posted while this tired.")
Gig went well; I didn't play as well as I'd have liked, but the band as a whole was good and I had my moments. We pleased the audience and the actors, and that's what counts. I didn't get to play the bowed psaltery after all, but I did get to use the splash cymbal briefly and wander amongst the diners with a tambourine (which I would have seriously underplayed if I hadn't been nudging the band's main percussionist for the evening to play louder and more confidently all night -- as it was, I had my own advice to him bouncing around my skull when I left the choir loft and trailed two singers around, so I gave them the kind of percussion they wanted instead of something timid and half-assed. *whew* Lucky break there.). But otherwise I stayed on bass recorder again. Fortunately, I really like bass recorder. (But at one point the sopranino-and-soprano (and shawm!!) player next to me asked, "in a group where everybody wants to play bass recorder, how come you're the only one playing bass?" Maybe the presence of a cellist had something to do with it ... the one other person playing bass recorder was switching off between that and other things (other recorders, and some percussion, I think). So I felt a little more 'exposed' on the tunes I was weak on than I had expected going in.) I was a little disappointed that most of us didn't get to play on the fanfares, but I do have to agree that the shawm was far more impressive and, well, "fanfare-ish", than recorders.
And now I've reached, as a digression, what I should have started out writing about in the first place. Good point at which to stop. Except for mentioning that now I've got some of Craig Ferguson's riffs about Scotty's accent bouncing around my brain.