NEW CASTLE — Have you ever lost something? I mean really lost it.

I'm talking, you're looking for your keys in the freezer or the washing machine kind of lost. You start blaming people and playing the detective game. You've torn the house apart, searched every crevice of the car and still, nothing. You remember thinking to yourself, “I'll put it right here so I don't lose it.”

But where was that? How could I be so absent-minded?

That very thing happened to me back in college when I lived with a couple of roommates in Pittsburgh. We each had jobs so there was a little money in the household, but nothing to be proud of. I was actually working two part-time menial jobs at this point, along with my full-time school schedule.  

My roommate, Rob, worked at a diner up the street. He was slightly older than the rest of us and always seemed to be involved in one type of hustle or another. Rob was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, who was always willing to spend every cent he had on a fun time, and this was no exception.

It was the summer of '92 and Metallica and Guns ’N Roses were touring stadiums together with one of my all-time favorite bands, Faith No More. They were scheduled to hit Pittsburgh in late July and play Three Rivers Stadium (yes, Three Rivers ... I'm old, remember?).

I hemmed and hawed about getting tickets because they were uber expensive in a comparative sense to my college-kid budget. Plus, I had just seen Faith No More perform an amazing show at Metropol in Pittsburgh a few months earlier, and even got to meet them. I had seen Metallica several times before. With that, I convinced myself that I didn't want to go.

My roommate sensed that I wanted to go and expressed that he wanted to go in spite of his “Dead Head” girlfriend's ridicule. As we stood in the living room dispelling her claims of it not being real music, Rob handed me $200 and said, “Get us some tickets, we're going!”

I was ecstatic! This was so amazing! At that time, $200 was like winning the lottery! I couldn't believe my ears or eyes. I reached out and grabbed the stack of $20 bills as his girlfriend scoffed at us.

This all transpired on Friday evening, so I had to wait until Monday when I went downtown for school to get the tickets. I neatly placed the pile of $20 bills in my wallet for safe keeping, alongside my own pair of dollar bills.

Monday rolled around and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the hottest tickets in town. This was in the era of National Record Mart, when you could walk in and get tickets to any given show up to the day before the event. No service charge, no tax, just a legitimate ticket price. During lunchtime, I rushed out of the school and hustled over the NRM in Market Square. I ran to the ticket window at the back of the store, where the girl who worked there knew me by name from my frequent visits.

I told her I wanted “Two for Metallica.”

She wrote it down in her logbook and grabbed my tickets.

“That will be $180,” she said.

I reached into my jacket pocket for my wallet and ... nothing! The fear started to overwhelm me. I searched my other pockets, my jeans, my school bag, my portfolio case. Everywhere. Nothing! Quickly, the realization that I was screwed became apparent.

I explained that I didn't have the money and slunk away in embarrassment.  

“Maybe I left it at home,” I thought. “Hopefully, I left it on the dresser. Man, I hope somebody didn't steal it. Oh, I know somebody stole it. What am I gonna tell Rob? I'm screwed. It's on the dresser back at the house. I know it. It has to be.”

After I agonized about the whereabouts of this money for the rest of the day, I finally made my way home after work and scoured the house, looking for the wallet. I searched all through my room, behind the dresser, under the bed, in the dirty clothes. I looked in the bathroom, in the couch, under the couch, in the kitchen, and yes, I looked in the freezer because ... well, because you never know.

What was I gonna do? I had to tell Rob something. I know he was going think I just took his money. I looked so bad no matter what. Either I lost the money or I'm a jerk and took it.

Eventually, Rob got home and he asked if I got the tickets. I said, “Well, I got a problem. I can't find the money. I don't know what happened to it.”

At first, it looked as if he didn't believe me, but I guess my honest nature and long-standing record of being straight-forward with everybody made him accept my tale.

He helped me search the house and we both agreed that somebody must have taken it. I eventually got a new ATM card and told my parents, because I had one of their credit cards in there just in case of emergencies.

Time came for the Metallica show and Rob had somehow gotten his hands on another $200 and insisted that we still go to the show. I felt like a real loser for losing his money, yet he was still willing to put up more money so we could go. However, the show had been sold out for weeks and here we were the day before without any tickets.  

We decided to just go down to the stadium and see if we could get in. We went down really early in the morning. I remember the fog was still rolling off the Ohio River down at the stadium, but the parking lot was already full of tailgaters and parties. We eventually found a guy (a.k.a. scalper) who had two tickets. He wanted $60 each for. YES! We'll take them. We didn't expect to get great seats, we just wanted in.

We proudly made our way through the gate and handed our tickets to the usher. He said, “Through that entrance, keep going straight.”  

As we continued to walk, we realized that we were headed toward the floor seating. We glanced at the tickets. We had two tickets for the second row, on the floor! We both looked at each other in disbelief and simultaneously decided it was the most appropriate time for a high five.  

Needless to say, we had an awesome time. Faith No More was amazing in all their weirdness. Metallica played a blistering two and a half hour set, and Guns ’N Roses tore it up for more than three hours of amazing rock ‘n’ roll, capped off with fireworks.

Several months later, we lost the lease on the house and were in the process of moving out. I was going up the dark steps in the front, knelt down to pick up some boxes, and there it was. My wallet nestled in the back corner of the step. I picked it up with excitement in my heart and looked inside. There was Rob's money and even my two dollar bills still there. Everything was just as I had left it.  

That wallet had sat on those dark, dusty steps for more than six months, with all three of us passing it each and every day several times. Not to mention our friends and girlfriends. In reality, that wallet had been passed by at least 1,200 times and none of us ever laid eyes on it or knew that we were just inches away from a small treasure.