So, back in September of 2001 I was 27 years old and admittedly had a bit of a drinking problem. So on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 when I was so "rudely" awakened by the telephone just before 9am EST or so (by which time most functional and accomplished people would already be at work or at least on their way stuck in traffic) by my girlfriend at the time (my current wife) I was a bit hung over and incoherent. She articulated something about a plane having hit a building in New York and sounded a bit confused and distressed. English isn't her native language (mine is) so I figured maybe she was confused or something. I envisioned in my head maybe a little 4 passenger propeller plane having crashed into a building in New York, jammed into the side of the building with it's little flimsy tail section poking out a window or something. I remember chastising her for calling to wake me up for such a trivial thing and then telling her to just calm down and go about her day and then hanging up the phone. I decided since I was awake I might as well drag my probably still half-drunk ass into the bathroom to vomit then take some happy pills and brush my teeth and shower. And so I did. I got out of the shower and I'm sort of starting to feel human again but still a bit bleary eyed and I wander around my otherwise empty apartment drying myself off and click on the television.
The sight I was greeted with gave me pause at first. It clicked that my girlfriend had called me about had obviously been more than just a prop commuter plane crash. If I wasn't mistaken, that was a world trade center tower and that gaping hole in the side was considerably larger than what I had mentally envisioned. Still, even so...this was just a tragedy. An airline pilot high on coke or drunk or something having made a tragic error. Nothing more. A horrible accident. So I proceeded to get ready for my day and drag myself late into work. I knew I probably still stunk like the Jack Daniels I had abused the previous night. It was maybe 9:20am or so by now...I'm in my car headed through the local back roads on my way to the office without a clue yet as to the second tower. Though I was still reeling a bit, I was starting to come to my senses and I took note of how things were abnormally silent along my route to work. I came up to the usual 4 way stop intersection I usually take and a woman driving a car along the cross street just cruised slowly through the intersection as if on autopilot/zombie mode. These are back neighborhood roads so I recall her travelling slowly enough that I got a chance to peer into her window as she passed through the intersection...her face looked blank and expressionless. I didn't realize it at that time but in hindsight I realize now that she knew something I didn't.
When I got to work around 9:30 is when the true magnitude of what was going on started to sink in. It wasn't normal...people were crowded around each other in the hallway talking and the TV there now showed 2 smoking towers. I only remembered 1 tower hit...then there were the overheard parts of conversations and whispers...terrorists...Pentagon.....Pennsylvania....
Finally around 10:30am EST as I sat there at my desk trying to ignore distractions, gossip, news, office politics, etc...like I usually do, it started to sink in. Our country has been attacked on a scale of what I can only liken to pearl harbor with my limited knowledge of world history events. I began to tremble as it all began to fall into place in my mind. The magnitude of the mornings events started to sink in and the more sober I became, the more I realized there were no accidents this day and the world and the nature of human warfare would be changed forever.