Home » How Often Have You Lost Something You Left On The Roof Of Your Car, And What Did You Lose? Autopian Asks

How Often Have You Lost Something You Left On The Roof Of Your Car, And What Did You Lose? Autopian Asks

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Humans are squishy, flawed creatures. Our imperfections are part of what makes us so interesting! But the little things that make us human can also be a real pain in the backside. Sometimes you might put something on top of your car and then proceed to forget it’s there. Who knows how far you might drive before you realize you’ve screwed up. Have you ever left something on top of your car? If so, what did you lose?

I am a very forgetful person. I can take down an important note in my head one minute and forget it the next minute. Sometimes it’s unimportant stuff, like a song I just heard, and sometimes it’s something important, like the date of my niece’s birthday party. Sorry, Porsche (not her real name). I’ve also forgotten more awesome headlines and story ideas than I’m willing to admit.

Vidframe Min Top
Vidframe Min Bottom

Thankfully, I combat that nowadays by jotting things down in a notes app as soon as things come to mind. Sadly, I guess I don’t do that for forgetting things on top of cars.

So far as I can remember, I’ve thus far left a phone on my car’s roof twice and a debit card on my roof twice. The worst one happened last year when I took a road trip to Florida in my old 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI. I stopped at the Buc-ee’s in Calhoun, Georgia, snapping the picture below. I didn’t get fuel here, but a brisket sandwich and some Red Bull. I then proceeded to drive about 200 miles south, making it well past Atlanta.

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As I was jamming out to some tunes and troubleshooting an underboost issue, it hit me that I didn’t remember where I put my card. Ah, “it’s fine,” I thought, I’ll just stick my hand in my purse’s card slot and it’ll be there. Uh oh.

Panic slowly crept in. I was carving some curves earlier, maybe I tossed the card on the floor? I searched the entire car and found nothing. That’s when I made a startling realization. I most likely left the card on the roof while I left that Buc-ee’s. But it was now around three hours later and around 180 miles of distance. I then looked at the fuel gauge in the Jetta. It showed that if I turned around right away, I’d make it back to the Buc-ee’s with only 20 miles of range to spare. Those gauges are notoriously incorrect and the car’s turbo wasn’t boosting as it should have been, but I technically had enough fuel to make it.

I called my wife, turned around, and drove the slowest, quietest highway drive of my life. If that card wasn’t there I was boned. I already accidentally forgot my credit card and emergency cash at home and I was traveling solo in an area where I had no relatives and no friends. Sure, I could have used my phone for any NFC-based transactions, but that wasn’t going to work for a hotel room.

Those 180 miles felt like they could have been 1,800 miles. When I arrived at the Buc-ee’s, the Jetta’s range estimator showed a big fat zero miles. None of the employees saw my card and it wasn’t at the pump, either. In my desperation, I also searched the trash cans, even though I knew they had been emptied.

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I got so desperate that I started searching the street leading from the Buc-ee’s to the interstate (above). Sure enough, I saw my card sitting in the middle of a frontage road.

It had gotten run over by countless cars, but it was in ok shape and nobody spent a dime. The Buc-ee’s people were shocked. Let’s say I’ve since made sure something like that never happened again.

[Editor’s Note: I’m not sure this counts, but I once lost an entire re-upholstered armchair from the roof of my Beetle.

And I know we’ve all driven off with beverages on our roofs, but I happen to have me doing so on video:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by TriangleRAD (@triangle_rad)

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Man, that’s embarassing. – JT]

How about you? What have you lost on top of your car?

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Root
Root
1 month ago

My friends and I drove 20+ hours across the country to attend Woodstock ’94. The night before we stayed at a relative’s place about 3-4 hours away in Eastern Long Island and when we were leaving the FedEx envelope with the tickets were somehow left on the roof of the car. Fortunately, it turned out that the envelope was found in their driveway, but we had to go all the way back to get them. Just glad they were found – that would have sucked to drive all that way and lose those tickets, which were hundreds of dollars *each* in 1994.

Lightning
Lightning
1 month ago

It was placed up there intentionally, but I lost a ski (or two, don’t quite remember) from a ski box that wasn’t latched properly and bounced open. It was a cross country ski that had been used by a biathlete in the 1994 Olympics, complete with an Olympic stamp and flocked with tons of stickers on the tips from ski marking at races. I got a call from a dog musher who found one of them, but it wasn’t worth the 3+ hour round trip drive back to get it when I was missing the other of the pair.

Erich Beyer
Erich Beyer
1 month ago

As a very broke college student I made a cream cheese bagel and put it in a plastic bag for lunch and left it on the roof of my car before driving out of the parking garage. I noticed it fall off the car as I turned out of the garage and stopped down the street to pick it up. As I walked back to pick it up, I watched someone run over half of it. As I didn’t have enough money for lunch and was almost late for a final, I picked up the now mostly flat bag and proceeded to still eat it for lunch. Ahh, good times.

Last edited 1 month ago by Erich Beyer
Barty
Barty
1 month ago

My daughter’s favorite, can’t go to sleep, or make it through the day, stuffed animal. I set it on top to get her into the car seat and left it there. I cannot begin to describe the depths of my anguish when I realized it wasn’t there as we got home. I immediately got back in and retraced my route, panic building every block that I didn’t see it. After getting back to her friend’s house and turning around I was seeing divorce and custody papers in my future. Half way back to our house, thank all the gods, I saw that stuffed animal sitting on the sidewalk where some kind, anonymous stranger set it. I feel like I owe a stranger my life.

Luxrage
Luxrage
1 month ago
Reply to  Barty

My neighbor’s kid had a doll like that but it had long outlived its durability. It was stained and falling apart, it had one of those plastic molded faces that was the only thing left of its head. We went to a movie with them and she forgot it in the theater, they wouldn’t go back for it despite her realizing it just after they left the parking lot.

Last edited 1 month ago by Luxrage
George McNally
George McNally
1 month ago

I hot glued a Starbucks cup to the roof of one of my beaters a few years ago.

That was fun.

Lardo
Lardo
1 month ago

Had just got a cargo cover for pickup and went skiing at Mammoth. Was exhausted at end of day. New skis, QST 106, they are great. Was driving away and people are looking at me/my vehicle. Going maybe 35 mph, I get the hint and pull over. As I slow down I heard a noise, guy across the street looks at me like I ran over a dog. I had been so tired I just left the skis on top to the cargo cover. Luckily the skis had departed to the side of the road and not into traffic. Then there was the time at Crested Butte where I had left my wallet on the fender of the car next mine in the parking lot. Had switched coats when I got there and in the process of transferring my stuff I had left it there. At lunch time I realized exactly what I had done. And it was still there when I got there.

Spikersaurusrex
Spikersaurusrex
1 month ago

Well, not the top of my car, but the side of the bed on my Maverick. I was heading home from a week at a rental at a lake and I set my coffee cup (contigo insulated travel mug) on the bed rail while I loaded the dogs and got them snapped into the back seat. Reached for my coffee 15 minutes down the road and realized it was gone. Not a big loss. I have two more.

Cars? I've owned a few
Cars? I've owned a few
1 month ago

I once left a Canon III rangefinder camera on the roof of my car and drove off with it. It was a few miles before I realized it was not on the seat beside me, I didn’t bother going back to look for it. It would have been heartbreaking to see the damage it almost certainly sustained.

After that, I started putting my keys on the roof next to anything I put up there. I’m not that trick works anymore with keyless ignition. I’ll have to test it sometime.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
1 month ago

I got *lucky*. I was in Wilmington, NC for work, and the night before I left my rental car was comprehensively re-arranged by what had to be a large truck while parked at my hotel overnight. 2013 Mercedes E350. Of course I managed to park in a part of the lot with no camera coverage. No big, damage waiver for the win! Thankfully, I had planned to go to the airport good and early and have lunch there. Car was still drivable. Called the cops, they came and did a report at the car.

Evidently, in the hubub of this I left my wallet on the trunk or roof of the car. Drove off to go to the airport, stopping for gas along the way. THANKFULLY, pay at the pump so I figure out my wallet is missing BEFORE I fill the tank in the Benz – but *MY WALLET IS MISSING* and I am now on the verge of being late for my flight. As I am freaking out, my phone rings. It’s my insurance agent. Someone had found my wallet, and called him, because his number was on my insurance card. They had spotted my wallet sitting in the middle of an intersection, and stopped and picked it up. They were also nice enough to meet me at the airport to give it back to me – and that airport isn’t THAT close to town either. I gave them all the cash in my wallet as a reward! Returned the car to Hertz, who were nice enough to waive the fact that I could not refill it with gas, and made my flight home with a about 3 minutes to spare. The only rental I have ever returned damaged in nearly 30 years of work travel. And the only time I have ever lost a wallet.

Inthemikelane
Inthemikelane
1 month ago
Reply to  Kevin Rhodes

I only wish it was one. Same basic length of time, but there’s been more than I want to remember. Seldom did the rental agency pick it up. Even if they did, it was covered. Still, when you’re trying to make a tight flight, if they pick it up it’s a delay, but if not, get your receipt and book it to the terminal

None of it was intentional, things happen. Once I was literally just shy of the return lot (can’t remember where), needing a left turn. I could see the entrance. Started the turn when speed demon flies by and reflexively I avoid it but slam up and over the highest curb I’ve ever encountered. Minutes before it’s turned in.

Uninspired Screen Name
Uninspired Screen Name
1 month ago

Let’s see. Besides my glasses on the roof (I was wearing my sunglasses and found them smashed in the road a quarter mile from where I started), I’ve had two lucky instances

Back in the late 80s, before they put good cup holders in cars, I had a ceramic car mug – one shaped like a cone with the wide part at the base so they didn’t tip over. Put it on the roof of our minivan after church and raced home on the freeway. I heard it move on the roof and thought it was curtains for that mug and kept driving. When pulled off the freeway and stopped to check, it was still there and sitting upright. Whew!

The other was after a bike ride. I put my expensive Garmin Edge 1040 on the bumper of my car in the garage. You got it – I backed out, took off and it fell off. But before I knew it was gone, I got a text from my wife. Someone found it, knew how to check to see who owned it and called to say she found it. And she lived just around the corner from me! I was so lucky she found it and called. Good people do still exist.

Rory Wohl
Rory Wohl
1 month ago

Well, friends, it’s clear that the few remaining brain cells I have managed to hold onto are no longer speaking to each other because in the last month I’ve left the dog’s food bowl on the roof of my car (unrecovered) and birthday cards for my sister-in-law (recovered, but only after being well-trodden by passing traffic) and nephew (unrecovered).

Needless to say, the person to whom I am related by marriage no longer allows me to put items on the roof of the car.

Harvey Park Bench
Harvey Park Bench
1 month ago
Reply to  Rory Wohl

Sorry to hear you didn’t recover your nephew

Lizardman in a human suit
Lizardman in a human suit
1 month ago

Didn’t recover, or didn’t try to recover? If you knew my nephews you wouldn’t wanna recover those vipers either.

Squirrelmaster
Squirrelmaster
1 month ago

Once, fifteen years ago I left a book on the fender of my Jeep. It took both hands to load something into the back of the Jeep, so I set the book down on the fender and then realized I needed to grab something inside. On my return trip I walked past the other side of the Jeep, didn’t see the book, loaded up the rest of my stuff and drove off. Luckily, it wasn’t my only copy of the book, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Last edited 1 month ago by Squirrelmaster
PlatinumZJ
PlatinumZJ
1 month ago

I once had a really good roll of duct tape. I was using it to remove adhesive residue after removing some stickers, and placed it on the roof of my Jeep (better than setting it on the ground, right?). There it sat until I headed to work the following Monday, when I heard a thunk while I was getting on the interstate. It slowly dawned on me that I couldn’t remember putting the duct tape back in the cabinet in the garage. Had I not been running late that morning (and thus in need of the interstate), the roof rack probably would have held the duct tape in place.

YeahNo
YeahNo
1 month ago

My buddy lost his iphone out of his backpack, off his motorcycle, at speed.

Auto-notification terrified everyone on his emergency contact list that he had been in a severe crash.

Last edited 1 month ago by YeahNo
Always broke
Always broke
1 month ago
Reply to  YeahNo

I use to ride to work sometimes when I had a bike, I always took thermos coffee tumbler that I would shove under a tarp strap on top of my rear bag. It went tumbling off one day but I managed to find it no worse for wear still finished the coffee when I got to work. These things are great.

https://thermos.com/collections/mugs-tumblers/products/stainless-king-tumbler-16oz

StillNotATony
StillNotATony
1 month ago
Reply to  YeahNo

Back in the 80’s, I rode my red KZ440 everywhere. I had a white, full face helmet, and I usually wore a navy blue leather jacket.

One day, riding home, I came upon an accident involving a motorcycle. A red one. With a rider wearing a white, full face helmet and a dark jacket.

As I rode past, I had the thought “I wonder if anyone will think it’s me, since it’s on my way home, not far from my house?”

I arrived at to an empty house, but not two minutes later, my mother roared into the garage and came in shouting my name. I shouted back “WASN’T ME!!”

A few minutes later, my sister’s boyfriend skidded to a stop in front of our house, but just as he leapt out I opened the front door and again said “WASN’T ME!!”

Col Lingus
Col Lingus
1 month ago
Reply to  YeahNo

I once left 4 brand new car stereos on the luggage rack of Grandpa’s Honda 750 without securing them. Despite hours spent looking for them, they were never recovered…

AlterId has reverted to their original pseud
AlterId has reverted to their original pseud
1 month ago

…sometimes it’s something important, like the date of my niece’s birthday party. Sorry, Porsche (not her real name).

Did David marry into your family a couple of weeks ago?

Boulevard_Yachtsman
Boulevard_Yachtsman
1 month ago

In 1996 I left a ratty insulated Dominos Pizza delivery bag on top of my ’84 Celica after delivering a fresh CDS (cheap drunk special) to some extremely inebriated college students who paid me in change. I realized what happened less than a half a block away and was back to that leave-point in less than two minutes. Too late, it was already gone. They were supposed to dock our pay if we lost one, but luckily the one I lost was one of the worst still in use so my manager just said “oh-well” when I told her.

Carter Young
Carter Young
1 month ago

One of my Kindle e-readers. it fell off the roof as I was entering the highway from a USFS campground. I saw it hit the pavement in the rearview mirror, and the a Corvette ran over it. I walked back to pick it up, and the screen had a super-wide imprint of a tire track across it. The electronics still worked, but the tire track obscured the text.

When I was a young mountaineer in California during the early 1070s, my friend was mooshing his -30F Holubar down sleeping bag into its stuff sack on the roof of his VW Squareback. Then we took off for the long drive to the eastern Sierra. At the trailhead that night, no expensive down bag was in sight. Did we abandon the trip? Nope, took one of those cheap flannel sleeping bags we used as a trunk liner and an issue of the LA Times, and he spent a very chilly night at our 11,000 ft. elevation camp with the aid of a friend’s big down parka.

Always broke
Always broke
1 month ago

The last time my parents came to my house they had the window squeegee from the closest gas station on their car roof.

I’ve done it a few times but mostly tools fortunately I have a 1/4 mile gravel road between my house and the highway so most were found.

Marc Fuhrman
Marc Fuhrman
1 month ago

Well, it wasn’t left on the roof but rather somewhere on the fender, but I did lose my cell phone once like 15 years ago. I was doing some sort of maintenance on my Saab and my phone was jabbing into my hip so I removed it to finish working on my car. Forgot about it and went for a drive and it fell off somewhere during it.
Luckily someone did manage to find it and returned it to the local Verizon store, who then called my mother explaining what happened. She then wound up sending me a letter in the mail saying where my phone had gone and I picked it back up. Got pretty lucky on that one, it didn’t get damaged or anything. It was just a week of dealing with the anxiety of losing it in the first place.

Balloondoggle
Balloondoggle
1 month ago

My favorite Bob Seger cassette. And later an entire cake in its carrier. Lucky, the rooftop luggage rack held it and the cake was ok when we arrived.

Last edited 1 month ago by Balloondoggle
YeahNo
YeahNo
1 month ago

Everyone knows the easy ones – wallet, groceries, phone, coffee. And the not so obvious – cat carrier, mattress, whale head…

But this one took a whole road trip to manifest. After a weeklong family campout, driving through the night to return home, fatigued and yet hurried to finally dock in our garage…

I clicked the remote control, rolled up the driveway, and took out the entire lower panel of the rising garage door with the forgotten roof box.

OttosPhotos
OttosPhotos
1 month ago

Not the roof, but I lost the gas cap on my dad’s Accord back in the 90s, before they started installing straps. Went to get gas, had brain fade, and the next time someone went to fill up the car, they noticed the cap was gone.

IanGTCS
IanGTCS
1 month ago

September 2022. Went to see Ghost and Mastodon and stayed at a friends place for the night. In the morning I walked up the street to grab a coffee and on the way back to my car someone was tossing out some kids stuff theirs had outgrown so I snagged a kick scooter for my younger son. Set the coffee on the roof to put the scooter in the trunk, then got in the car and drove off. Got on the DVP and realized that the cup wasn’t in the cupholder and had an aw crap moment. Cup was still stuck in the crossbars when I got home an hour later so at least I didn’t litter.

Also was driving next to Mastodons tour busses on the highway which was cool. And Ghost was one of the best concerts I’ve seen.

OrigamiSensei
OrigamiSensei
1 month ago

An heirloom quality leather-bound Bible that was a special gift from my parents. Left it on the roof, drove off, and never found it despite searching the entire route. I hope it did some good for whoever picked it up…

Cheap Bastard
Cheap Bastard
1 month ago
Reply to  OrigamiSensei

I imagine whomever found it felt as if they were the focus of divine intervention…

That guy
That guy
1 month ago
Reply to  OrigamiSensei

I was headed to church one evening with my family- with our car windows down. I heard a thump and something flicker in my rear view mirror. Our 1 year old daughter fussed a little. I had laid my Bible on the roof when I put her in her car seat. The wind flipped it over the edge and the vacuum from the open window sucked it in the car into my daughters lap.

Dogisbadob
Dogisbadob
1 month ago

I left a drink on the roof and drove away with it! After I left the lot and turned the corner, someone in another car points it out to me, and somehow it didn’t spill 😮

So I pulled over and took it off the roof and put it in the car.

The best part? The car had T-tops, so I could see it from inside the car 😀

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