I have a 1936 BMW motorcycle that is currently being restored (by a “big wheel” in the pre-war BMW motorcycle restoration community).
Several months ago I mailed off a request to have the factory records searched (they give you this nifty certificate with the build date, numbers and delivery location), I got the certificate in the mail some time later but they “forgot” to charge me for it. I got a letter from them weeks later and I sent them an email offering payment but BMW will not take my money!
Here’s one I’m about to rectify, I think … One of my high school musical rehearsals was held after school in the library. I had a very small part, and we were doing early read-through of the script, which left me a good bit of downtime. So, I snagged a book of a nearby shelf & read it until I got to my scene.
That night, unloading my backpack after I got home, I found I had a copy of Richard Armour’s It All Started With Stones And Clubs that didn’t belong to me. :o I was too embarrassed to deal with it at the time, and eventually forgot about it … I found it in a box this year, and I’m booked on a flight back there (visiting my parents) tomorrow, so I’m planning to bring it with & get it returned.
So, any suggestions on returning a ~25 year missing library book that you never actually checked out? At least, I kind of hope I’m remembering correctly that I didn’t check it out, otherwise I owe like $1,000 in late fines.
Back around 1991 the company I worked for changed over their payroll system. I suddenly went from having around 110 hours of vacation to around 200. A few other people had similar mistakes, spoke up, and it was corrected. Not me. I wasn’t happy in the job and decided to keep it. Sure enough, less than a year later I quit over some really stupid shit and cashed out my unused vacation.
Not super proud of it or anything, but there you go.
I bought a stove about, oh, 15 years ago now that was pretty pricey - about $3K altogether. It had to be ordered, and I put $1K down on it to order it and then when it was delivered paid the remaining.
I put the $1K down by giving them my debit card. It never went through. I called the place a couple times and reminded them, and they never could be bothered to charge it. About a year after I bought it, I bought something else from the same place and they pulled up my account. I asked them if everything was up-to-date and they said Yeah. At that point, I let it go.
I also ended up with an external hard drive that belonged to a company I used to work for. I didn’t keep it on purpose, I sorta forgot I had it, and by the time I realized that I did, I figured I gave them more than enough overtime to make up for the cost.
And just today when packing my groceries in the grocery store, I found that the coffee filters I had were still in the cart, they’d sort of fallen under the seat and I hadn’t paid for them. I started to bring them back but the checker had started with the next person in line. I was bleary-eyed and not caffeinated, and I said what the hell and just packed 'em up with my other groceries.
I sorta feel bad for that last one; I should have paid for them. The other two, no guilt at all.
I bought a printer with a $50 rebate.
At ten weeks no rebate. Called company. Check for $40 finally came.
Called company: “Oh, our fulfiller went bankrupt. We’ll get you another check for $10 in 8-10 more weeks.”
10 weeks later, a check came…for $50.
I kept the difference. My little slam at all those stinking rebate programs.
After one of my many shopping trips to Ross, I came home and pulled my purchases out of the bag and discovered that there was a pair of boy’s sneakers in there, a small size that would fit maybe a 6 or 7 year old. I have no idea where they came from or what to do with them, so I went over to my next-door neighbor’s and offered them to her for her son, who was about 5. She was glad to get them.
I’ve appropriated things in odd ways, too. I live next to a park with Little League fields, soccer fields, a playground, and a bunch of picnic tables under a roof. One night I was walking my dog through there and saw a giant pewter bowl on one of the picnic tables. It was dark and the park was empty and closed, so I picked up the bowl, dumped out the little bit of watermelon that was in it, rinsed out the ants, and took it home. I still have it, although I’ve never used it.
My friend stole one of those metal crab cracker things from Red Lobsters once (no idea why) and she left it in my car. I still have it somewhere in my room.
Also, I was filling up gas one time. The guy was talking on his phone and distracted, I gave him $40 and went to fill up some gas. As I approach $39.50, I slow down since I’m close to my limit but I accidentally go over $40.00. So I figure, “what the hell, free gas, I’ll just fill my tank up.” So I filled up about five dollars more. Then I had a stroke of genius and decided to go get my “change.” I ended up getting $15 back. He must have thought I gave him $60 instead of $40.
My friends and I would eat at Bennigan’s once every week or two – it was fairly cheap for college students and it was one of the only good, convenient places open late enough after our games. We could just about get there and get our orders in before the kitchen closed. We even had a waiter who always took care of us, whether we had three or thirty people in the group. He gave us discounts and free appetizers and we tipped like drunken sailors.
One night, I’d ordered my usual fancy drink – a glass of ice water. I must have had a pitcher of the stuff, but I was both thirsty and exhausted as the night came to a close. I paid my ticket, picked myself up, and headed out to the car to drive everyone home. It was only when I tried to take out my keys to start the car that I realized I was still holding my cup. :smack: Somewhere in my dishes there is a green plastic Bennigan’s tumbler from almost ten years ago…
The weird thing was, nobody stopped me. Nobody seemed to notice. The waitress even held the door for me and wished me a good night.
I got to go to Australia for a while when I was working in Singapore. I made friends with several of the Aussies that I worked with and one weekend they took me to Hill End. While I was setting up the tent on the campground, I picked up a rock that turned out to be a chunk of quartz about the size of my two fists together and totally shot through with gold. I kept it as a souvenir and it is sitting on the shelf behind me right now.
Since the area was a national park, I probably shouldn’t have done that.
A computer supplies company accidentally included an IDE/SATA case for an external disk when I ordered some software. I kept it, thinking “this may come in handy one day”. A year later my laptop caught fire but I was able to use it to retrieve my data.
A former college roommate went way off the reservation, chucking his job (and eventually his career) in a weird path that eventually ended up with him living in his parents’ home for a few years, then dropping out of sight. He’d asked me to hold onto his massive (150 lbs each), expensive ($2500 in 1982 dollars) speakers, and I dutifully dragged them around for about three years, but I had just graduated from college myself, and had some transitory living arrangements, and after my second move, I gave them to Goodwill. I suppose some very poor person has or had a really awesome set of speakers. (I believe they were from ESS, and had incredible sound). I think I still owe him the speakers, but if he ever comes back and asks about them, I’ll just give him the speakers I replaced them with (an incredibly long-lived and awesome set of compact Acoustic Research speakers).
I also had a work friend whose wife convinced him to chuck it all and move back to Hawaii. He gave me his coffee table and a humongous 1050s-style executive desk (which I will use to seduce Doris Day, should she ever become my secretary. He came back, leaving his marriage in Hawaii, but didn’t want any of the furniture back.
Well, I work indirectly for a bank. We’ve been renovating a bunch of branches, and you would be amazed just how much spare $ has accumulated under the old teller desks over the years. Its mostly change, but there have been a couple of $5s and 10s too (the old school little picture kind). Since this isn't considered part of the bank's deposits, its finders-keepers on it. Although the ethical thing has been to put this towards buying dinner for the work crews.
I’ve also kept my share of computer hardware from this job, as well as an executive chair - all stuff which otherwise would be going into the dumpster.
We got a package of English muffins at the grocery store once. I guess it must have belonged to the customer ahead of us in line.
Years ago, when I worked at McDonalds, some guy quit and left a very nice jacket behind. I started wearing it when I worked the drive-through because it was sure better than mine. Many months later, a manager told me the guy came back looking for his jacket, but she knew I used it, and he’d done without it all that time, so she told him she never saw it. I still have it.
A pair of Ray Ban sunglasses. I should have left them where I found them in case the owner came back looking for them, but I was in a “fuck it” mood, so I took them.
I’ve done the grocery thing before. I find the best way to assuage my conscience is to get another of the same item when I’m shopping, pay for it, and then leave it in the store.
I’ve had free cable since I bought my house back in 2002. I didn’t even know if was turned on until a year later when a friend plugged in a TV. Never had a bill or anything from the cable co.
I happened to bump into the previous owner, who had owned the place since 1997, and mentioned this to him. His response was “What cable?”. He had never ordered it.
So it’s been on for around 13 years at this point with nary a bill. The downside is I can’t call and complain if a channel gets all staticy.