I was in college in Northeast Ohio, close enough to where Flight 93 turned around that they cancelled classes and shut down most of campus for the day while everyone was trying to figure out just what was going on. I’d skipped my first class of the day to study for a French test I wasn’t ready for, and skipped my normal news viewing for the same reason, so I didn’t know about the attacks or the closure. The area felt eerily empty when I walked to campus, and campus was far too empty, but humans are so good at rationalizing things. I was eating lunch in the dining hall when a girl I’d lived in the dorms with the year before saw me and said Hi, and while we were chatting told me what had happened. My reaction was “You’re joking!” because HOW could it be true? Even though I knew she wasn’t the type to joke about something like that. My housemates and I spent the afternoon watching the coverage on TV until it became too much. When I got back to my room I ended up watching PBS kid’s shows, because we didn’t have the cable hooked up yet and everything else over the air was attack coverage.
We had a cat who’s preferred method of getting on the sofa was to jump on the back, then hop down to the person sitting on said sofa. She went from gracefully flying through the air, to not so graceful, to climbing over. No, going around and making the shorter jump was Not Acceptable. No, being picked up was Not Acceptable. And WHAT is this chair (at an easier to jump height) doing next to the spot I prefer to climb?! Stubborn old lady, and we cared more about her than the upholstery so we let her climb.
Only obvious if they forget the decaf.