Recently I bought a new (to me) car, and the dealer didn’t do a very thorough job of cleaning out the interior. I took it home, and as I was bending over to remove the protective plastic stuff from the floor on the passenger side, I saw something sticking out from behind the ashtray. I pulled it out and discovered a dollar bill and not one but two slips of paper, both with the words, “things to do: 1. get a life” written on them.
My other discovery in a used car experience was a few years ago. I went along with a friend to test drive some cars. We were driving along, and I opened up the glove box to snoop and discovered a film canister full of pot. I thought about keeping it, but the friend I was with was very much against marijuana use and I didn’t want a lecture.
I found a mouse nest in the glove box (made from the manual, and some carpet backing), and a trail of dessicated baby mouse bodies coming out of the kicker panel. No mommy mouse though.
I bought that car for a dollar, and the seller didn’t actually want the money.
A good friend of mine bought a used Chevy pickup from Sam Pierce Chevrolet. He dropped some change between the seats, and when he pawed around for the coins, he found a .38 caliber S&W revolver. On closer examination, in better light, he found Sam Pierce’s name engraved on the gun. He gave it back.
stormchaser and I bought a cheap car to get us by after we had a car accident in 1998. It drove alright, so he decided to keep it as a work car. When he was cleaning it out to sell it a few years later, he found a bag of pot under the back seat.
I found an engraved Zippo in my delish '86 Dodge 600 sedan. It was to Scott H. (no, I’m not protecting the innocent–it really just said “Scott H.”) on one side, and then on the other it had that old saying about “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the wisdom to know the difference,” etc.
I thought that was a bit much for a freakin’ Zippo.
But I filled it with lighter fluid and used it til I lost it, too.
I worked for a few years in a wrecking yard my dad owned. Finding things such as money and pot was common. Other finds included:
A severed finger. The county coroners office picked it up for me. It was pretty dried up, the guy that took it said it looked like it was cut off about 3 years earlier. It was in an Olds Cutlass that had been in a nasty wreck.
A diamond Seiko watch, still in the Seiko box which was in a bag from Ben Bridge Jewelers. The purchaser bought the watch in June of 1970 and paid $600 for it. It was under the back seat of a 69 Ford LTD. I still have it.
A marriage license from a couple that got married on June 11, 1975, the same day I graduated from high school. It had gotten stuck behind a glove box in a 63 Ford Falcon. Someone with the same name as the groom was listed in the phone book and the license was from his marriage. He had blamed his wife for losing the license the day they were married. At the time I called, about 7 years later, the couple was in the process of getting a divorce. He came by a couple days later and picked up the license.
A paper bag full of cheap souviners from a Seattle Pilots baseball game. A metal ruler with the team schedule, a couple small banners, 4 small basebase bats and a shot glass. I gave the stuff to a couple of neighbor kids, I had no interest in the stuff. I would like to see what they would bring on eBay today.
My mom inherited an old car from my grandfather several years ago. It had just sat down at the lake. Imagine our surprise when the mechanic told us we had a packrat colony!
My mom inherited an old car from my grandfather several years ago. It had just sat down at the lake. Imagine our surprise when the mechanic told us we had a packrat colony living in the engine!
My ex’s uncle once bought a used caravan for cash. When cleaning it out, under one of the benches he found a rifle - with the original sight ground off and new telescopic sights welded on the top. Spooky. Especially as the guy who sold him the caravan had a Northern Irish accent.
Instead of reporting it to the police, though, he hung it on his wall over the fireplace.
My ex boyfriend got a phone call from a woman who got his name and number off a car repair receipt in the car she was thinking about buying. Strangely, the car had been written off (by said ex boyfriend) about a month before, and he’d had to give the pink slip to the insurance company.
I always wondered if she actually went through with it, after hearing from him what had happened to the car - it rolled into a ditch when he swerved to avoid a raccoon. I seriously wondered how he made it out of that car alive.
I went through a really bad time financially and my car got repossessed. While they cleaned out most of my stuff and returned it to me (or should I say, I had to buy it back from the creeps), I never got back the CDs that were in my disc changer. I’m sure whoever bought the car probably found it to be a really odd variety.
A Llama .45 caliber automatic pistol with a suede holster rusted to it. It was under the seat of an old pick-up truck. Since the finish was already destroyed, I refinished it and have it still.
A woman I used to live with traded her car in and didn’t bother taking anything out. I had to go to the dealer and retrieve my steering-wheel lock, a casette tape and a sweatshirt from the back seat!
I’ve had my caravan for…I think four years. Last Christmas we were driving around to look at the lights, and I was sitting in the back because Mr Cameron was driving and grandparents etc. were sitting up front. I opened one of the compartments in the back that stick out from the sides of the car, and found a piece of notepaper with three lines of writing on it:
I’ve had my caravan for…I think four years. Last Christmas we were driving around to look at the lights, and I was sitting in the back because Mr Cameron was driving and grandparents etc. were sitting up front. I opened one of the compartments in the back that stick out from the sides of the car, and found a piece of notepaper with three lines of writing on it: