Just read your 9-11 blog post - most excellent post!
And I'll tell you where I was here, because blogger is NOT cooperating with me.
I was 22 years old, working at Walmart, had a handsome hubby, and 2 beautiful children ages 2 and 6 1/2 months old. We were living what we thought was the "good" life and we used to crack a lot of jokes about how my mom was always stocked up on everything. (trust me, this beginning is important).
On September 11, 2001 I reported to work at 7 am. I was so stinking excited to start work EARLY because that meant I'd only be working until 2 pm and I'd get to go home. Sometime a little after 9 am, as I'm mechanically ringing up my cash register and trying to figure out why we're slammed with customers buying things from economy packs of diapers to excess amounts of water, bread, and coffee, a customer tells me, "The trade towers are gone." I asked her what do you mean they're gone? She then tells me that two planes had crashed into the towers.
It wasn't something I comprehended right away, and my first thought was, "This is what mom was talking about when she said God told her to be prepared!" I think I said something along the lines of "there goes the stock market" and the customer looked at me like I had 3 heads. Seriously, my first thoughts were someone has economically crippled us on purpose to make us vulnerable, and my first thoughts were I was not prepared. In that moment, I knew I wanted to go home and just hold my babies, so I asked my CSM and she said no.
A little while later, a lady whom I remember spending Sunday's with after church comes through my line.
"Mitch is somewhere in Pa," she is obviously worried. "I don't know if he made it through or not."
I reply, "Did he have a run in Pa?" Not sure why she's so worried.
She gives me this paranoid look and says, "He was driving right through the area where the third plane went down."
That's as close as it came to touching me personally that day. Right after she left, I knew I was going home no matter what. The head jerks of Walmart were blasting messages across our intercoms, the t.v.'s ect and were telling store managers and other people that were "in charge" to be respectful of employees and to be considerate that some would choose to go home to be with loved ones. Our store manager walked by right then, and I used that intercom message as my ammo. I said, "Mr. Joliff, I want to go home. I need to go home." He said, Ok, finish these customers, and go home."
So I did, and when I shut off my light the head CSM comes running over and yells at me. She refused to let me leave. I told her Mr. Joliff said I could, and she said she hadn't been told. Few minutes later Mr. Joliff comes back, and I'm still running my register. He says, "I thought you were going home?" I told him the CSM wouldn't let me. He found another cashier to take over my line, and escorted me to the time clock! He said, "Go home."
and I did. I flew home. I walked into my mom's house, where my kids were, and she was shocked to see me. By now it's almost 11 am, and she had not had the t.v. on all day. She was shocked to see me home, and as I scooped up my kids, she asked if I had been fired. I said no mom, New York was attacked.
Then she turned on the t.v. and we watched the footage all day. I had also called E at his work to see what he knew, if anything, and I begged him to come home. He did, too.
And I spent the next several days, weeks, and months waiting for the other shoe to drop, completely convinced that this was The Event that would push our country into it's Second Great Depression Far Worse than the First Great Depression and I was not prepared.
eta: Our friend, Mitch, was just fine. He had literally passed through the area where the third plane went down 30 minutes before, so he was safe!
for you anyways and everyone else that was affected by this day 10 years ago. 
on the tag sale! I enjoy going to these sales but SO doesn't and I don't like going by myself so I haven't been to one in over five years. I used to go with my mum when I lived back home and that was fun 
and honestly, it wasn't anything we were doing. It was things like getting upset because someone backed their car into hers, left several scratches, and just took off without leaving a note or anything. It was things like the day we had gone to MickyD's for breakfast after a morning of Garage Sailing 
Sorry, didn't mean to jack your thread, just started remembering that morning 
I could write a full length book of my experiences there, some traumatic, some uplifting, all very interesting. Here I am with the FEMA SAR dog I massaged, which was yet another life-changing experience for me. I went from terrified of dogs to NEEDING a dog in the space of a few minutes. My first dog, Gunnar, was named after this dog, Gunner, with his owner John.
