Drove off after a surf session yesterday and realized later that I had left my composite WRSI helmet on top of the car. Gone… in the same way as my blue composite Seda helmet before it. The Seda lasted well over 10 years, after my hot pink skateboard helmet which lasted 5 years before rusting out. The WRSI was only used for a little over two years and I was just getting used to it. Have to admit, it bugs the heck out of me to lose the WRSI. I was even more bothered by the loss of the Seda helmet.
In contrast, I have smashed a much more expensive waveski to pieces on my rocky homebreak; broken an Onno and a Werner carbon fiber paddle in surf; dropped three sets of progressive eye glasses into the water while rolling; and lost two GoPros in the surf. None of these really bothered me much. Par for the course.
My sentiment is that when you play, things will inevitably get broken or lost. Somehow, this perspective does not seem to carry over to the helmets for me. Forgetting something really bothers me. Weird.
Hope the “senior moments” are far in between. Now, got to get another surf helmet…
Maybe keep your helmet on until you get in the car? Tops of the cars should come with warning labels!! Had a nice SLR camera I destroyed when driving off with it on the roof of the car. Now when I set something on the car, I make it a point of setting it on the hood in front of the driver’s seat as a counter measure to the roof throwing my stuff away. I do know that one of a new pair of gloves will crawl out of a pocket at the first chance it gets, and it seems to always be the same hand so that I can’t even mix and match to make a hybrid pair. Pocketknives also seem to make their escape on a regular basis. Broke an Aquabound paddle in the surf and also lost a pair of prescription glasses many years ago in the surf. My list of lost or left behind is long and embarrassing so I am stopping now.
Ha, when I was on my college tennis team, I ruined my only tennis racket by leaving it on the roof of my car and driving off. I feel your pain.
But I do not think think it is weird to feel differently about the helmet vs other things lost in the heat of battle , so to speak. If I break something or lose something while I am engaged in an activity with the risk of that happening, as you say, it is part of the game. It can even feel very reasonable.
But if I lose or break something because I was absent minded, or not following my own protocols, then it bothers me a lot. Because I should have know better. And I probably was not following my own well intentioned protocols to prevent that from happening.
I am the proverbial absent minded professor…and have learned over the years to develop habits and protocols that help me prevent losing and breaking things. Of course I still lose and break things, but fewer than I would have when I was younger…at least that is what I like to tell myself, smile.
Do what I do put it on the hood. The roof is no mans (objects) land and an absolute no, no! Unless of course it is tied down. I was joking about wearing the helmet in the car. Opps, I see you already responded to the hood idea. I must not of read the entire post.
We live and learn. Did that with a coffee mug. The worst was going to my in-laws home to type a research paper. Put the baby on the roof . . . No . . . Put the project folder on the roof, including all notes, reference books, and drafts. Drove three miles before realizing when I arrived at my destination that all the research material bad been left on the roof. Retraced the route and found nothing, but someone found the library recources and my text book with name/phone number. Nothing else. I was ready to take an incomplete when I explained (dog ate my homework), but the professor convinced me that I could reconstruct the paper and gave me a week extension.
I feel for you and understand that sinking feeling.
Well the good news is I’ve forgotten about most of the gear I’ve lost or forgotten. I’ve lost a few paddles after swims or I’ve loaned them out to beginners only to have them lose them. One particular student lost not only his new paddle but then the spare that I loaned him. The river gods are needy. My nephew left an pro tec old helmet I used for many years at a lunch spot. A buddy of mine left his at the takeout and when we went back it was gone. We lost paddles shuttling once and got 2 out of 3 back after searching the ditches. My current carbon fiber ww paddle has a nice structural repair. Someone slammed a tailgate shut when it was not all the way in. Currently my son’s new raft (hyside) is in need of repair. It appears I put a small hole in the floor on the greenbrier river. Unfortunately raft glue takes a while to ship (land only) so my son is a bit frustrated.
When I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan, my neighbor had three or four kids and a baby. She put the baby on the roof of her car in a baby carrier seat and drove off. Fortunately the heavy mass of the car seat and the baby made the seat rotate as it tumbled and it landed butt down in the heavy snow. No harm except the driver behind her was very shaken up by the sight of a flying baby.
I have broken my favorite Onno paddle several times in heavy surf, it’s repaired with PVC tubing and lots of S-Glass and epoxy. I’ve done the helmet on the car roof once. I drove five miles through Lajolla and it finally flew off when I was doing 70 and had to slow down for a traffic jam. I saw this blue thing flying down the road and thought WTF was that as it crossed the median and went off an overpass. I went looking for it but it was no where to be seen.
Ha! That reminded me of when I drove off with a new soaking wet 6/5/4 wetsuit on top of my car. It stayed on the car through local streets until I hit the highway. Saw what looked like a person (a “ninja”) diving off the top of my car onto the road in the rear view mirror. Realized that it was my sopping wetsuit. Got off at the next exit and came back around. Gone.
I think (at least in my case), part of the reason that ‘lost/broke’ in combat is ‘sort of’ ok, is that, yes, you did lose equipment, but you overcame the difficult situation you were left in (sense of satisfaction).
eg: early on in my ‘surf learning’ I remember one particular session where I got knocked over, then, in the turbulence, had the paddle ‘grabbed’ from me. Upside down - I could have bailed into the rough conditions, or - I pulled off the pfd & used it to hand roll and ‘brace’ for the rest of way back in (searched the shore for the paddle to no avail).
Well done!!! Likewise, had my paddle stripped (before I started to use a paddle leash). I put my practice with hand rolls to “good” use and rolled up. But, I was still “up the creek without a paddle”. Next big wave hit and I went right back over. Had to take that long swim back to shore. I honestly don’t do much hand roll practices anymore.
There is a Repo Man,
out on his-and-my loss-of-mine-own mission,
deep into the mine of the lost mind,
in tailing mind’s omission per some decommission.
He travels fringes of the many twisted road.
I’ve given in-and-unto that cold shoulder.
A gifted Santa thrown from many car’s rooftop.
Unlike me seems to be never getting older.
And in my re-travels up and down life’s highway,
(that’s life phrase littered in part with these releases)
I count many sighs trying without regret,
to repo the man if not constituent pieces.
Sun glasses! I can never hang on to them for more than one season. Especially on those Ozark trips. On bigger water I’m always in the sun so I put them on and don’t think about it till I land. On those Ozark streams, though, where there’s often a narrow slot running under shady trees and/or bluffs I take them off to better see rocks or submerged branches, set them on a pack in front of me, forget they’re there and either knock or tip them overboard before I remember taking them off. I then tell myself I’ll get those chums and then forget to do so until I’m out in that situation again. Been doing that for years. Another little vignette in the further adventures of the man of genius.
As an example of my extreme forgetfulness regarding sunglasses, on one of my first Ozark trips I was told we’d be stopping at cave spring - a cave you can paddle into from the river. Knowing this I brought a headlamp for the occasion. I put the headlamp on when I entered the cave. It wasn’t until after the trip when others put up photos that I saw a photo of me coming out of the cave with my headlamp lit and sunglasses on. DUH
Tops of the cars should come with warning labels!! 
Had a nice SLR camera I destroyed when driving off with it on the roof of the car. Now when I set something on the car, I make it a point of setting it on the hood in front of the driver’s seat as a counter measure to the roof throwing my stuff away. I do know that one of a new pair of gloves will crawl out of a pocket at the first chance it gets, and it seems to always be the same hand so that I can’t even mix and match to make a hybrid pair. Pocketknives also seem to make their escape on a regular basis. Broke an Aquabound paddle in the surf and also lost a pair of prescription glasses many years ago in the surf. My list of lost or left behind is long and embarrassing so I am stopping now.
Opps, I see you already responded to the hood idea. I must not of read the entire post.
