Goofiest lost gear stories

Lisa Lane-Collins

Lisa Lane-Collins

Sophomore
Dec 9, 2012
270
0
16
Adelaide, Australia
What's the dumbest way you've lost gear?

I'll go first, client at a pub was packing up the mic in the front bar and dropped it, it rolled into the cellar through a gap between the floor and the wall and was lost in a deep, murky pool of water (he's calling it a well. I don't remember there being anything like that down there but maybe a drain I guess). I don't know if I want it back badly enough to brave drain water (murky water triggers a fear response in me). So it's probably still there, caught in the s bend, within arms reach and lost to the world foreveeeeeer.
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

I'l bet you couldn't do that again if you tried. I'm not a big fan of murky water, or anything that is swamp or jungle like.
The worst I had was someone driving over a my snake when I wasn't looking. Figured it out the next day right about the time the lead singer started the set (sans a working mic, of course). Noticed the channel meter go back and forth as I moved my foot. Still steamed about it, three years later.
frank
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

I've dropped a truss socket down an air shaft in a skyscraper (doing a temporary light-up of the building, and bumped the socket release button). That was one of the worst "clang-clang-clang" noises I've heard.

While not "lost", I was in a rental Sprinter when the load shifted and bumped the door latch, causing the side door to slide open. While we didn't lose the load, it was too close for comfort.
 
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A friend of mine was coming home from a gig and the truck stopped at a stop light.

He said "That looks like my work box!" as a road case rolled past the truck-------------------

They forgot to close the doors and it fell out and landed on the wheels and rolled past them.

OH-OH
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Depend on what you call "lost gear".

I once had a car drive into the scaffolding my PA was setup on and it all came crashing down.

There was nobody IN the car. It had rolled off of a hill-through the crowd and into the PA.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Ivan Beaver said:
Depend on what you call "lost gear".

I once had a car drive into the scaffolding my PA was setup on and it all came crashing down.

There was nobody IN the car. It had rolled off of a hill-through the crowd and into the PA.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

In an attempt to make light of what was probably a scary situation, I assume there was lots of Batman-esque "biff" and "splat" sounds :p

Not lost gear per say, I once had to climb my way onto a third story roof at 4:00AM (after working a full festival day) to disconnect the Cam Feeder that the electricians had previously forgotten to bring down with them.
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

I have another - not sound gear...
I was working as custodian at a school on election day - so I was basically all by myself.
At some point, I realized I had lost the keys to the school - the whole lot.
Frantic hours of searching never turned the keys up.
About a year later, I was working on my Datsun 510 changing springs/shocks.
The gas tank in the 510 was in the trunk tucked up under the rear window shelf, right against the rear seat backs.
Something was interfering with me accessing the shock mounts
With a magnet on the end of a telescoping rod, I fished out the offending object from between the tank and rear seat back.
Voila. The keys to the school from the prior year.
I've yet to figure out how they got there.

Another time I lost the checkbook.
Found it quite some time later in the top of the tin of a cheap socket set I used precisely once - the 3/8 square drive of the ratchet twisted when doing brakes for a friend.
Nearly a perfect fit.
What possessed me to put the checkbook in there during its only use?
frank
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Spenser Hamilton said:
In an attempt to make light of what was probably a scary situation, I assume there was lots of Batman-esque "biff" and "splat" sounds :p

Not lost gear per say, I once had to climb my way onto a third story roof at 4:00AM (after working a full festival day) to disconnect the Cam Feeder that the electricians had previously forgotten to bring down with them.
Click to expand...
The strange thing is that nobody was hit or hurt.

The car went between 2 police cars and they estimated the speed at 35mph.

There were several thousand people there and somehow it missed everybody.

It came in from the side(ish).

Of course the PA came crashing to the ground.
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Today while I was out riding my bike I picked up a tire lug wrench out of the middle of the road. I figure it fell out of the back of Bubba's pickup truck, but that could cause a mess if somebody rode over it with something heavier than my bike and threw it up into the air.

JR

PS: Over the years I have picked up a lot of tools from the roadside while jogging. About a half-dozen vise-grips that were apparently MacGuyver repairs to one of the many "dangerous at any speed" logging trucks around here. Brakes, we don't need no stinkin brakes.
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Jonathan Goodall said:
Though not a wrench, this wee video demonstrates your concern http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...s-debris-flips-over-handlebars-in-50kmh-crash
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I was more concerned about folks in larger vehicles not paying attention, like the bubba who dropped it... I was once hit by a falling tree limb while riding my motorcycle and then it was mostly about not getting run over by the car behind me who couldn't stop as fast as I did.

Riding without the thick metal shell is more dangerous.

JR
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

John Roberts said:
I was more concerned about folks in larger vehicles not paying attention, like the bubba who dropped it... I was once hit by a falling tree limb while riding my motorcycle and then it was mostly about not getting run over by the car behind me who couldn't stop as fast as I did.

Riding without the thick metal shell is more dangerous.

JR
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I got hit once by a bumper (back when cars had those) fell off of a car.

Tore up 2 tires and the side of my VW superbeetle convertable. I was not happy :(
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Ivan Beaver said:
Depend on what you call "lost gear".
I once had a car drive into the scaffolding my PA was setup on and it all came crashing down.
There was nobody IN the car. It had rolled off of a hill-through the crowd and into the PA.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Ivan, there is a trope that when faced with a choice, one must choose the option that will lead to the best story.

Somehow you seem to come up with the best stories, just from being there.
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

I have a friend who forgot to close the door on his trailer.He didn't know anything was wrong until he got to the gig.He lost his amp rack,stands and other things.It fell out on a limited access highway.By the time he got back,everything was gone.He later found one of his amps at a local pawnshop.
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Jack Arnott said:
Ivan, there is a trope that when faced with a choice, one must choose the option that will lead to the best story.

Somehow you seem to come up with the best stories, just from being there.
Click to expand...
I have a "whole list" of "road stories".

At the time they would be called nightmares-but it is somehow twisted funny looking back at them now.

I WOULD NOT want to relive them-many WERE NOT pretty. And some cost me a lot of money.

I am just glad camera phones were not around back then. All the "evidence" is purely a memory and will fade away and die out.

But there are many times I WISH I had a camera phone.

Sometimes people don't believe me-but you can't make this stuff up--------
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

I once left an EZ-tilt at a riverboat casino. It was a place where the load in involved an elevator. We would stage the gear by the elevator at load out, then with one guy at the top and one guy at the bottom send loads down that way. The ez-tilt was leaned up against the wall and forgotten about.

The best thing was, we came back to do that same venue about 2 months later, and the EZ-tilt was leaning against the wall right where we left it!
 
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Not me this time, but the same company I worked for. The owner bought 2 nice White EQ's from a guy. Sent an employee in an empty box truck to go pick them up (back when gas was cheap!). This guy put the EQ's in the box, shut the door and didn't latch it. Both EQ's, of course, bounced out and were shattered into a million pieces before he got back to the shop.....
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

Tim Weaver said:
Not me this time, but the same company I worked for. The owner bought 2 nice White EQ's from a guy. Sent an employee in an empty box truck to go pick them up (back when gas was cheap!). This guy put the EQ's in the box, shut the door and didn't latch it. Both EQ's, of course, bounced out and were shattered into a million pieces before he got back to the shop.....
Click to expand...
I always put the fragile stuff in the front seat.

I would never leave an eq to float around in the back of the truck.

But that is common sense-something that seems to be missing these days.

He probably blamed you for not telling him how to transport them

People don't want to be responsible any more. :(
 
Re: Goofiest lost gear stories

I used to use fluorescent marking for a lot of my gear id, labeling and so on. Of course, that means that if I really wanted it to be useful, I just had to have a UV source to illuminate things with. I ended up with a few UV bulbs in desk lamps I had laying around, as well as few UV flashlights, and a pile of gooseneck lights a buddy and I redid with UV leds.

One of the particular places I worked often was with my former middle school, because I just couldn't bear to hear them mix anything - the audience was physically in pain sometimes. One of the last shows I did there before I broke off was a Choral Department "POPS" concert. I knew the venue, and trusted them to keep everything locked up like they always did, so I brought my UV gear and left it in place to get us all out of there faster each night. Day of arrived, and so did I - only to find that every single one of my UV lights had been taken. What angered me the most was that the desk lamps themselves were in place, but the bulbs had been taken out of them!

I eventually tracked down the kids that did it. Turns out they held a rehearsal with all of the kids in the show on stage that school day, and a few of them had worked together to sneak them all out past the frazzled director. One of the idiots decided to play around with the UV flashlight backstage when he thought I wasn't looking, so I had them red handed. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my stuff back because the administration didn't care, and decided that it was my responsibility rather than theirs to convince the kids to return it. Oh well... a couple hundred dollars out the window later, I decided I didn't need to be that "cool."
 
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