OT: I Found My Vice-Grips

[dp]

Months after my wife had had her car worked on,I found a huge screwdriver over 2' long laid across the radiator in a recess. It never shook its way out.

I'd like that back.

[The Artful Bodger]

I heard a slight clatter in my car then five minutes later the engine began to overheat. Opening the bonnet ('hood' to the colonial cuzzies) showed a spark plug wrench had got caught in the fan and destroyed it along with knocking a hole in the radiator.

It was nice to find my favourite plug spanner!

[Evan]

Many years ago in California I was visiting a friend in the hills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He had a gold claim on the Yuba River far out of town and had invited me to drop in a do some panning for gold. We hiked downstream to a likely spot in the middle of nowhere where a small stream entered the river and had washed down a great deal of black sand. Black sand and gold are often found together because black sand is usually magnetite and is heavy.

I scooped up a pan load of sand and began washing it. Almost immediately I found a very large lump of gold glittering in the sand and water. It looked odd and I reached in and picked it out.

It was an 18 carat solid and heavy gold class ring from the local High School from a couple of decades previous with initials engraved.

Later I took it to the local jeweller and he gave me $5 for my trouble. I don't know if he ever found the owner.

[rockrat]

When I was 11 the natural gas company came through the area and replaced all the steel lines from the street to the house. They had a backhoe to dig the trench to the house but as they neared the tap, a fellow with a shovel would dig the last foot thus preventing the machine from breaking open the branch line.

I was watching the guys work during the summer after doing some yard work. The backhoe had moved down the street a ways but there were 2 young fellows, just 18 and new on the job, left climbing out of the last hole in our area. They filled in the hole and preceded to get out a few smokes before walking down after the machine.

Suddenly one fellow looked at the other and had a few choice words to share. It seems that his lighter had fallen out of his pocket somewhere in that hole. It was a gold plated Zippo with his initials on it. They left without the lighter.

I had turned 21 and was at my folks house for the summer. The gas company was coming through again replacing the taps they had put in 10 years prior because of some manufacturing problem. I was sitting on the porch when a few fellows started to work on an area across the street. I heard one of them say something about "around here but I cant remember". Curious, I wandered over.

The same fellows were back replacing the taps and I asked about the conversation. They were laughing about a lost lighter around here, somewhere. I told them about a long ago summer when I watched a hole get dug from my folks front yard.

I had just finished the story when the backhoe dumped a load of dirt on the ground and right near the top of it was that lighter poking out. The friend had just won a bet that had been placed on what street his buddy had lost the lighter years before. $5 and a smoke was the reward.

No, the lighter didn't work but I heard that the owner sent it back for repair and Zippo had not only fixed it but also took the story down for its archives.

Zippo had published a book two years or so ago covering the lighter and its history. I bought the book hoping to see the story in there but it didnt make the cut. They do have photos of lighters that have been through all sorts of nasty deaths.

rock~

[alsinaj]

One morning, while hiking in a remote part of the Sierras, I stopped on the trail and changed from long pants into shorts. Unknown to me, my Swiss Army knife slipped out of my pocket into the bushes at the side of the trail. That evening, I realized the knife was missing, but by then I was 15 miles down the trail. Two days later, a late August downpour forced a night-time return march. A few hours before dawn, my mind completely focused on following the trail in the dark, I suddenly knew I had found the knife. I stopped, turned on my flashlight, and found it about 15" from my foot. I was so certain that it was there that I didn't think anything of it. The next day I realized how strange it was, and that the mind has powers we are hardly aware of. I still have the knife.

[bborr01]

In the mid 70's I was hauling a 65 Mustang to the scrap yard and heard the unmistakable sound of a clawhammer hitting the pavement as I rounded a corner.

It was my Estwing clawhammer that I was so fond of.

I stopped the truck and trailer and started to run back to get it just in time to see some guy stop his car and reach out and pick it up.

Bastard.

I'm sure he didn't know it was mine though.

Looking back, I sure wish I hadn't scrapped all those Mustangs.

Brian

[Black_Moons]

Not quite as cool. but the last time I worked on a car (I hate working on cars)
Alternator bolts with seperentine tensioner.. so right in my way of course.. using my fingers to take a bolt off by turning the socket.. and .. *drop ting ting tong* ... there goes a socket from my FAV socket set that iv kept togethor for years.. Ok... get the flashlight.. nope... get the mag grabber tool. poke.. poke.. poke.. half hour later... start poken inside the frames drain holes under the car 'SCREW IT! the car can just have my stupid socket for all I care, let it fall out on the road for all I care!' start packing up the tools.... Go to pack up the magnetic grabber.. And bingo! its stuck to the end of it.... I must of picked it up on the very last try and not noticed.

[knudsen]

I once opened the headliner on my old Jeep pickup and found a screwdriver I had left in it when I did some rust removal a few years back, a few miles away. I opened the headliner after moving to Indiana, the truck was bought and the tool lost in the Philippines. So, I guess I have the record for the most traveled lost tool here? If so, do I get a bozo cookie?

[Spandau]

I lost a nice Kershaw pocket knife in my brothers front yard last summer while playing with his male German shepard, Klaus. I looked for hours for that knife, cost me like $80 and was practically brand new. I was downtrodden for weeks over that.

He just found it for me---he picked it up with the riding mower and banged it into the front quarter of his '08 Tacoma at 100mph. One scale is dead, and the steel aquired some "patina", but I am happy. He is not!