September 11, 27 J.E.
Well, today pretty much sucked.
First, I wake up to the news that I lost my first game in our fantasy football league. I was up by 20 points Sunday night, but my opponent still had Brian Griese to play Monday night. That bastard managed to pull in 23 points, and thus ensure my defeat. Sure, I had a pretty good idea that I had lost when I turned off Monday Night Football by the 3rd quarter, but it was confirmed this morning.
As I was stewing about that, I got the word that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I was envisioning a little private plane clipping one of the massive towers. The one of my coworkers told me it was a 737. I was doubtful, given the media's penchant for exaggeration, but even so, it wasn't THAT bad. Sure, it's a tragedy, but a B-25 hit the Empire State building during WWII, and life went on.
Then a coworker told me that a SECOND plane hit the OTHER tower. That's kind of odd, I thought. That smelled of conspiracy. Between listening to the radio and trying to get on the Internet, I saw pictures of the second plane crashing into the tower, as the other one smoldered. Then I heard that the Pentagon got hit. That was pretty bad but, I thought, the towers and Pentagon would be repaired, and life would go on as normal. Those lunatic terrorists slipped one by us and got in a high-profile blow, but things would return to the ordinary daily drudgery in no time.
THEN I heard that one of the towers had collapsed. Surely they were just talking about the part above the explosion imploding. The majority of the tower would stay standing. But no. The whole thing was levelled. Soon after, the second one followed.
THEN I found out a plane hit near Pittsburgh, my home town. Things were not looking good.
At that point, the rumor mill was screaming at full capacity. There was a car bomb at the state department. There was a fire on the National Mall. A third plane hit the towers. Two more hijacked planes were heading west. A dinosaur was spotted in the Bronx. All of these ended up being unfounded, but it was a bit disconcerting.
I've never been to the World Trade Towers. I've never seen them in real life. I've never got to see the world from the observation deck. I haven't worked day in and day out under their shadow. Still, I will definitely be feeling their loss. Every old movie or photograph I see that shows the Towers dominating the skyline will remind me of today, and of all the people who have died for no good reason.
The Challenger explosion and the Oklahoma City bombings got people's attention, but they eventually faded from memory. The former because there were no remains, and the latter because it was a little-known building in a little-known state. This event will blows them all away. It represents the destruction of a globally recognized building in a very important city involving possibly thousands of deaths. Not to belittle those other two events, but as of now, they are permanently yesterday's news.
At least this will push shark attacks out of the news.