It’s easy to view Uber with some disdain. From low driver pay to potentially increasing congestion to displacing taxi drivers, the service has its fair share of thorns. However, lots of people use it, and people are prone to forgetting stuff. As such, Uber just released a list of the most unusual things left behind by riders over the past 12-ish months, and wow, are some of them ever strange.
Let’s kick things off with what was weirdly number eight on this year’s round-up of the weirdest items left behind, simply listed as “urinal.” Hopefully it was new and not pre-owned, but an entire pissoir is an exceptionally strange thing to just forget in a ride-hailing car, mostly because those things look pretty heavy. I mean, we’re talking about a porcelain fixture with metal plumbing, it’s not like forgetting a jar of pickles or a set of keys.
Mind you, if a urinal’s bulky, whoever left that behind has nothing on the person who forgot two mattresses in their Uber. Firstly, that had to be an Uber XL, but also how do you convince an Uber driver to let you bring two mattresses aboard? Even if they were brand new and the kind of mattresses you roll up, they still take up some serious space.
In case those payloads aren’t animated enough, another person left 10 live lobsters in their Uber. Even beyond the aquatic smell and the sheer cost of lobsters these days, those things can pinch! Rounding up creatures with claws from the back of a car sounds like an injury report waiting to happen, and cleaning up after them certainly doesn’t sound fun.
Perhaps one of the more perplexing things to leave behind in an Uber last year is an actual vehicle. A unicycle, to be specific. Yes, a person left their one-wheeled mode of personal transportation behind in a ride-share, and you’d think that the lost and found call would be quick considering they got out of the Uber on foot.
Then there are the other oddities that might sound odd at first glance but almost seem easily explainable once you connect the dots. A mannequin head with human hair sounds weird until you realize it probably belongs to a hairdressing student. A Ghostbusters ghost trap and a Harry Potter wand both fall into the “Convention” category, breast milk can be easily forgotten by a tired parent if it’s already been pumped, small items like a Remy the rat stuffed animal, Ozempic, and “A photograph of me and my friend at Benihana” are easy to misplace, and 100 red roses could’ve just been anniversary nerves.
Oh, and then there are a couple of legends that probably partied a bit too hard. One person left a “Viking drinking horn” in an Uber, another left 15 hookahs behind. One forgot a hoverboard and a mini fridge, while another accidentally left their DJ gear in their hired ride. You can read the full round-up of weird things forgotten in Ubers over the last year by clicking this link, but if there’s one note to end on, it’s that I feel bad for the turtle that someone left behind. Poor turtle.
Top graphic credit: Honda, Duchamp Estate
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Elon commutes in an Uber?
Elon changed his mind and brought the kitchen sink instead of the urinal.
When I drove for Uber for a short while many years ago, I had a few interesting items left behind by riders. The slightly more memorable ones were:
I’m not a huge fan of Uber… but this isn’t a problem I have with them.
Breast milk less likely to be left behind if it hasn’t been pumped yet, or if it’s inside a baby
I dunno, I’ve seen plenty of breast milk come straight back out of a baby, I wouldn’t call them secure containers.
And if it comes out of said baby, it is definitely getting left behind. Sorry driver!
Regarding the urinal, I’m imagining some drunk college students and a bar that’s suddenly missing some bathroom equipment. And a drive thru stop at a Taco Bell… And… I better stop there.
There’s a reptile rescue in NJ that picked up a box turtle that had been kept in a family’s kitchen for almost 50 years feeding it garbage like cat food. She was in pretty bad shape, but is recovering amazingly well. Don’t know how someone could forget one. Luckily, they’re amazingly resilient. I have snapper and painted turtles all over my property, which is really cool. Last year, I came upon a male and female snapper appearing to kiss while she laid eggs alongside the driveway. Had to look that up and it’s apparently a thing (more or less—they don’t have lips). The male ran away as I approached with my car and I’m sure he’s still hearing about that.
A lot of them are supposed to hibernate part of the year.
A friend with a desert tortoise has to provide a secure shelter for Susan to snuggle into.
A lot of people don’t know their requirements.
The Uber post doesn’t specify whether it’s like a hospital bedpan, a trucker’s urinal, or an actual ceramic urinal…
Apropos of the last one, thanks to the commodification (heh) and enshittification (also heh) of search engines it’s been hard to find information online, despite repeated efforts over the years, but I read something many years ago about how in the late ’60s or early ’70s some hikers in Alaska found a urinal randomly laying on the ground in the middle of a road-less forest some two days’ hike from the nearest town and when they noted its great similarity to the R. Mutt urinal piece by Marcel Duchamp (and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven) they packed it up and upon returning to civilization they put it in a temporary exhibit in either a museum or an art gallery in homage to the aforementioned piece. Possible that what I read was simply something like an April Fools Day joke with a bogus backstory but the source I read was an old academic art history textbook which was not likely to engage in such antics. Guess I ought to try my luck again with the search engines to verify the veracity of what’s indeed a pretty amusing anecdote if true.
+1 for enshittification of search engines.
Too many DUI plumber?
Marcel Duchamp… it was his Magnum Opiss.
I knew I was drunk, but not That drunk.
Is it like a toilet urinal or one of those plastic hospital urinals which you get when you can’t get out of bed?
Then the question becomes: was it empty when they left it…
I’ve heard of people using an Uber as a urinal, but actually putting one in an Uber, that’s new.
I’ve always wondered if folks doing Uber/Lyft actually made enough money to cover depreciation/replacement of their vehicles, or were just covering fuel/maintenance expenses with a minimal wage on top of that.
I bought a car off a guy that was trying to use it as a Uber / Lyft / Taxi but just aged out. I asked him about that. He said he got burned on a newer car so that’s why he was going older. He figured he could buy a used car about at the limit every year and do better.
Depends on a lot.
Location and how you use the system.
I’ve heard pay has gone way down recently.
Generally speaking, the answer is no. Gig driving jobs rely on people not understanding things like depreciation.