Stuff you’ve accidentally thrown away?

When I was a lot younger I had my parents house to myself one weekend. Ended up having a couple of mates around and, well one thing lead to another, we hit my dads wine collection. Started off with a nice white and swiftly moved onto a peculiar tasting red in a very dusty, strangely shaped bottle. Tasted rank so we throw it away.. Dad came back from a weekend away and noticed almost immediately that his prized 1765 bottle of Madeiran port had disappeared! We didn’t speak for a while after that.

One of my first jobs was helping build a public sculpture in a school. In the era before mobile phones the school had given us a pager so they could get hold of us while we were out on the grounds.

We kept dropping it and losing, searching for it, getting them to page it so we could find it, repeat for 3 weeks.

On the last day we’d been asked to bury a time capsule in the foundations of the sculpture. At some point in the morning we dropped the pager in a bucket of yacht varnish. Fished it out and left it to drain  – seemingly still working.

While it was draining it got knocked into a bucket of gold pigment. Fished it out  – the pager was now gilded as the pigment had stuck to the drying varnish… and still working.

It then got knocked into some mud – making it now look like an ancient golden holy electronic relic…. and still working.

After the time-capsule burying ceremony we decided we better fess up to school and tell them we’d ruined their pager… not to be found anywhere – buried with the time capsule ready to confuse future archaeologists.

Passport……realised without doubt at midnight my password had gone in the then collected bin, flight to Florida at 10am following morning with wife and two very excitable young daughters aged 4 and 7. Couldn’t even drive to airport to wave them off as it was during petrol strike and we had a nearly empty tank (they used taxi). Respect to Liverpool passport office as i had a new passport by 9.30am that morning…….but couldn’t get replacement flight until the tuesday. Knew the staff at airline office by first name as i was phoning them so much to check flight availability (needed to transfer ticket as opposed to buy new ticket as couldn’t afford new one) that when i finally got a flight they upgraded me to business class, sweet of them!

The cold feeling of grim realisation i felt that midnight will never be repeated, ever!! Worst feeling was thinking about wife and two kids alone in florida villa unable to drive and just waiting to see if / when i would be arriving, not the feeling that i wasn’t there (airline co advised wife and kids to still get plane as finding 4 seats a lot harder than finding one for me). Oh how we laugh about it now!!

I was playing golf at Strathpeffer and the third hole was a par three with a lake between the tee and the green so if you came up short you were in the lake. We had played the hole and were on the fourth tee and as we were teeing off there was a man teeing off on the third hole . He hit about five consecutive tee shots into the lake and then picked his golf bag and clubs up over his head and threw the whole lot into the lake . A while later we saw him waist deep in the same lake in the spot where he had thrown his equipment so shouted to see if he was ok . His reply ” my f****ing car keys were in the f***ing bag .

My wife’s mum got once managed to chuck two kittens out with the recycling. Some village lads turned up with one a couple days later saying they’d found it at the tip. My wife was told that the other one had gone on holiday and liked it so much she’d decided to stay…

A brand new Selle SLR Carbonio Saddle.  I/someone thought must’ve thought they were throwing away the delivery box, but the sodding thing was so light it must’ve been still inside and no one noticed.

Not me throwing out specifically, but postie left a delivery box containing a set off carbon SRAM XX cranks in recycling bin (which normally was a very handy thing). We were on holiday. Had asked neighbour to take out bins while we were away. Oh merde…

Managed to get a replacement set as hadn’t been signed for. Hope the postie didn’t get into trouble as we normally really appreciated that stiff got left. We. Ok have a playhouse so not such an issue

The girlfriends 3 hour old engagement ring, never found it. Still in the bad books.

Such bad books she reverted back to girlfriend?

A brand new Revo in its box was my worst cock up. Still niggles me as i cant believe I was that stupid.

A quarter of white widow once too, although that could have been a lucky escape seeing the effect on friends!!!

In my twenties I was very self conscious about wearing glasses. Collected a new pair of Oakleys on a Friday, about £320 with my prescription. Went to visit my girlfriend in Cheshire on the Saturday. Got off the train and realised, as I watched the train glide away, I’d left the glasses on the table with a copy of the Metro

£800 in cash ended up in the recycling bin.  We noticed a few hours after the bin men had been around.

Cue phoning the council who told us which lorry emptied our bins and put us in touch with someone who told us where the lorry emptied.  We beat the lorry to the depot where they kindly emptied the whole lorry load on the ground for us to sift through and retrieve our money.  A bullet well and truly dodged.

Not so much stuff I have thrown “accidentally” away but I do seem to have a lot of stuff go “missing” for which Mrs. C denies all responsibility…

A friends aunt threw away the will of a relative who’d left the house to her and my my friend.

Fortunately a copy was finally accepted and no other family members challenged it but it took some time to get sorted.

My wife used to manage a (large-ish) hotel and they had planned to renew half of the matresses one year as part of a refurb.  She duly gave the order to throw the matresses out and only realised what a mistake it was when they ran out of new ones to put back… 😐 She’d disposed of every mattress.

This was 10+ years ago and she still doesn’t really like talking about it.

Spent a couple of months wondering where a lapel mic had gone. It was in a small tin, which I found in the bottom of the woodburner a few weeks back after burning a load of cardboard 🙁

Cleared out car for sale; the central locking had been playing up for a while; you’d come back and it’d be unlocked.

I cleared the car and it resulted in two carrier bags: one bag of rubbish & one bag with First aid kit/ spork/ window cloths/ ice scraper etc etc: the things to keep.

I realised sometime later that I didn’t have the CDs and my satnav. Either I chucked them or they’d been nicked in the fortnight before. I genuinely don’t know.

“…<span style=”background-color: #eeeeee; color: #444444; font-size: 12px;”>£200 worth of watch sailed into the crowd never to be seen again.”

I spent a happy morning “making space” in my filing cabinet.  Saw all my old watch boxes and thought, “No point in keeping all that crap”.  Into the bin they went and a few days later (after collection day) realised that my Tissot* had been snuggled up in its box.  I may have called myself a few names.

*Awaits flaming from watch snobs…  ;-)</span>

As a teenager my folks visited Canada while leaving me at home. I of course abused the privilege and had parties most nights. I realised the house was a complete state so I thought I’d compensate by getting a big job done in the garden. There was a diseased tree that needed felling. A mate’s dad had just bought a chainsaw and I invited them to come and do us a favour.

My folks arrived at Gatwick exhausted from their time away. I picked them up after a few hour’s confusion which saw tempers fray. Then apparently my driving home was dangerous. At home they discovered their son had obviously fixed his bike in the lounge and had various bbqs which stunk the place out. In the garden my mates had hidden empty beer bottles in the trees etc that were still being found months later. The pièce de résistance was my mate and his dad still half way through the job. Saw dust and logs completely covered the finely manicured lawn and it emerged that I had authorised the taking down of their favourite willow tree and that the diseased one still needed dealing with!

Over twenty years later they still cannot laugh about it!

My dignaty and self respect

My dignaty and self respect

And spelling skills?

A friend sold his car just before a big night on the sauce. He got paid in cash, £11k – ish and had it in a plastic asda bag.

Night out was grand, led to having a load of randoms back to his place, general mess was created. Next day we tidied all up while home owner recovered in bed. He got up, and now began a frantic search. W<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>e’d assumed some of the randoms who’d arrived for the party had found the bag and left. Que 2 hours of phone calls, accusations and regret. </span>

Next move was calling the police, but someone suggested checking the bin for the asda bag, and sure enough £11k of booze stained cash laying at the very bottom of the bin.

Went to Bristol one Saturday afternoon years ago to buy a down jacket from a shop up Park Street. Arrived at the shop took jacket off hanger, then discovered the £100 in cash I’d taken with me was missing…
That was a lot of money thirty years ago. ☹️

I was convinced that my toddler had thrown away my Kindle last year.  Replaced it a few months later only to discover that he had only hidden the original in the bottom of my bedside cabinet while moving house 🙂

Cheers, Rich

Hope my wife never reads this…. We had lots of large cardboard boxes in the shed (of bikes) which were hanging about from house moves, bike/wheel and MrsW’s shoe purchases. I mean loads of boxes. Deciding to sling them I trot off to the tip to dispose of them. I do roughly check and retrieved a couple of things but two were obviously full of other cardboard debris. Some weeks later I have difficulty locating two sets of wheels. One a never ridden lightweight road set (£350ish) and the other some I had built for my 1980 Eddy Merckx from NOS Campag hubs and rims sourced in Holland and Belgium.

Fitted a new radio to my car including wiring though the firewall and the following morning realised I’d lost my wedding ring. Turned the house and bed upside down until I remembered about the wiring. It must have come off when I pushed the cables through the bulkhead.

Queue looking up and down the road in case it had come off and then dropped out of the bottom of the car when I drove off.. Nope, nothing.

Wife was really upset, and eventually bought me a new one, this time out of titanium.

Fast forward 4 years and the washing machine broke down. I thought Id have a go at fixing it and realised the main drum bearings had gone. Looked at the price of bearings and thought sod that.

On gumtee that day, local was exactly the same washing machine for spares as the door catch was faulty. £20. Bargain.

Went and got it, and stripped the whole drum assembly out of the “new”,one. To drain all the water I checked the lint filter and there was a front door key, and £2.16 in change. Bargain. New drum for 17.84!

Thought id have a look in the “old” one to see if there was anything. £2.15 and an old 15mm olive. Except it wasn’t an olive. It was my wedding ring. Wife was in tears for about 2 hours! I must have taken it off and put it in my jeans when working on the car.

Best thing is (sort of), is that since I’ve been married I’ve lost weight and the new titanium ring is fractionally smaller and holds the gold ring on my finger perfectly!

Always check the fluff/lint filter before disposing of a washing machine!.

Not strictly thrown in the bin, but a couple of years ago after a works black tie dinner thing I headed back to my hotel room. It was a twin room so as I stripped off I chucked my shirt on to the unused bed. Unfortunately it was a white shirt on to a completely white duvet cover. Obviously, in my hungover haze the next morning I didn’t even see it there and left it on the bed. I wasn’t bothered about the shirt, but I had my favourite pair of Pantone cuff-links in the cuffs. I rang the hotel when I realised, they rang housekeeping but no-one had found anything, which probably means they disappeared in to an industrial washing machine somewhere in Glasgow.