Drove 2 miles down country roads and realized I didn’t have my phone when I stopped. Looked in the usual spots inside the car, then I remembered that back home I either set it on my car or truck while I was loading a box in the car. Got out and looked on the roof of my car, there was the phone. :smack: Lucky for me it didn’t rain, and it was face-down on the roof and the case had rubbery edges.
When I did that (along with my iPad) I heard a thunk 100 yards into my journey and watched in the rear view mirror as my devices got destroyed by the cars behind me.
The lil’wrekker just did this. But the phone slid off and she ran over it. Lucky we had bought the insurance.
She already has her new replacement phone.
I had that happen to me once. Like you, the phone stayed on the roof, so I didn’t lose it.
I’ve never done that, but I drove home once with a bag of take-out food on the roof of my car.
It’s not just luck - the fact that it stayed on your roof for 2 miles of winding roads shows that you’re a good driver.
Yep I generally drive smoothly, but sometimes I like to take the curves and hills quickly. Luckily this morning wasn’t one of those times!
Annoying, for sure, but still better than my sister’s French teacher at grammar school: he put the whole stack of test papers of a critical pre-exam test on his car roof and drove away… I can’t remember if he could retrieve them all or if the test had to be repeated, but anyway it was a minor catastrophe.
I similarly left my Microsoft Surface (laptop) on the car roof. But I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I have a 15 year old car and a pitted roughed up paint which in combination with the Alcantara fabric keyboard kept it attached to the roof for 10 miles and up to 45 mph! I didn’t know I had put it there until I saw it when I stood up out of the driver’s seat. Yeah for friction!
If I’m driving and can’t find my phone, the first thing I do is check to see if the bluetooth symbol on the dash is lit. If it is, at least I know the phone is in the car (and I can use it, even if I don’t know where it is). Of course, I’m not sure I’d think to look on the roof for it.
It’s the kind of thing you only do once. (except I did it twice. The second time I realized it soon enough and it was still there)
This is the sort of thing than never happens with a good proper landline.
Reminds me of a few weeks ago. We took the train downtown for the tuba concert and found a cell phone on a train seat. The concert happened to be in a central park where there is also a metro office, so we thought we’d turn it in there. But they were closed for the weekend. I looked at the phone and there was a message on the screen to call a number, so I did. A guy answered and I asked if he’d lost his phone. Yup. He asked me where we were and I told him, and he said “turn around”. I guess he had a tracking app on his wife’s phone. Good thing I’m an honest fella.
I drove throught the centre of an Austrian Village with a carton of pineapple juice stood on the top of my car. People pointed and laughed and waved me down. I felt rather foolish as it was the height of the summer and there were a lot of tourists in the main square where I stopped.
Still, they all seemed to enjoy it and seeing as the carton was stood up in the normal manner it suggests that, even if I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot that drives quite smoothly.
Once in the early 1990s my mother noticed a Motorola MicroTAC on the side of the road and stopped to pick it up. She called the cell phone company to find out who it belonged to. (It turned out to be someone we knew.) Yes, it had been roofied.
My car-related phone destruction story goes thusly: Years ago, I had just bought an iPhone 6. A bag of dog food had broken in the back of my wife’s hatchback, so I tasked myself to clean it up. It was dark outside and I couldn’t really see where all the mess was, so I used the iPhone’s flashlight to light up the trunk. I wedged it in the hinge area between the open hatchback and the roof of the car, so I didn’t have to hold it while cleaning up. Anyhow – and I think you see where this is going – I cleaned up the mess and slammed the hatchback closed. It didn’t close very well, so I slammed it again. Seemed to close.
My wife then went out to the store. Some minutes later, I reach for my phone and realize I don’t have it in my pocket. Then it dawns on me … My wife comes home, and it turns out she slammed the hatch another three times, as well (not that it mattered at that point). I run out to the car and, sure enough, it’s still wedged in there and rather spectacularly bent and shattered and most definitely inoperable. I couldn’t help but laugh at my absent-minded stupidity.
No, I didn’t have insurance and I was only maybe two months into my two-year contract, so I still owed quite a bit on the contract. Luckily, at the time, T-Mobile was offering to buy out contracts for new customers, and had good phone deals for new customers, so I switched over to T-Mobile, traded in an old iPhone 5 I still had around for a credit on a cheaper iPhone SE, and my mistake only cost me an additional $100 or so, and I ended up with a better and cheaper service plan than AT&T, so I really ended up saving in the long run. I’m still using that iPhone SE.
Once I was repairing my lawn mower in the garage. I had to remove four huge bolts, and for safe keeping I put them on the roof of the car, which was parked right next to where I was working. I had to go and get a part, so I just hopped in the car and drove off. Before long I heard something sliding off the roof and hitting the road. I pulled over and looked, but was unable to find them :smack:.
We parked at the distant motel that would lodge us before my early-morning procedure. Some time after checking in and taking our room, a clerk knocked on our door and asked if the papers in their hand were mine. Oops - I’d left a manilla folder filled with medical documentation atop the car. I stunbled out (couldn’t run - the upcoming procedure was a knee replacement) and scrounged around the parking lot, fortunately enclosed by a mesh fence. Found everything, yay!
But never say never. Think of folks driving from fuel pumps without removing nozzles.
My dad drove in the driveway and noticed he had left his little can if 3-in-one oil sitting there. A search for tiny 3mm red cap revealed that he had driven downtown and back with it perched precariously in the fender.
Yeah I think Bluetooth is part of why I didn’t notice anything was strange, my car was connected to my phone just fine, it just wasn’t in the car. I guess if the phone had fallen off the roof I might have noticed my car disconnect from Bluetooth and that would have helped pinpoint the location.
Haha, I wonder if anyone saw my phone on the roof of my car. I don’t have roof racks or anything blocking the view, but my car is white with black trim and the phone case is white with black trim.
I had something similar happen with my old 1978 MGB. I had driven across the street to get gas, and set the detachable fuel cap on the back bumper. Then when I got home I noticed the fuel cap was gone. I immediately walked back across the street, just a couple minutes later, and searched the entire parking lot and route I drove but never could find the cap. Only thing I can figure is someone picked it up. I believe I went inside and asked but no one had turned it in.