Forbidden thoughts about 9/11: The readers respond

The Sept. 11 attacks, and the interest rate drops that followed, allowed me to move into a house with a very affordable mortgage. The thing I've never told anyone was that day all I could think was, This is got to cause the economy (and rates) to drop, and now I can finally get out of the apartment. The thing I'm even more ashamed of: In the weeks that followed I sometimes thought to myself, Now if only another attack happens, I'll be riding the lowest interest rates in the last hundred years.

-- Name withheld

The Friday night before 9/11, I met a girl at a party and got her phone number. On Monday the 10th, we made a date to go to a party on Thursday the 13th. She called me on 9/11 to make sure I was OK, and we kept our date. We ended up going out four or five nights a week for the next month, having a glorious time, enjoying wonderful sex, and laughing a lot.

There was a true sense of freedom and peace after 9/11; that media crap about all New Yorkers coming together was real, and it made the city a really nice place to live, and a great place for romance. Plus, it was terribly exciting to know that I was living in the middle of history. For the rest of my life, when I look back on being in New York during and after 9/11, I'll remember having some of the best times of my life.

-- Noah Tarnow, freelance editor in New York

We were living in D.C., but it didn't really faze us that terrorists had hit our very own city. We attempted to go to the movies where a homeless man kindly told us that no movies were being shown that day; grudgingly ate at the only food establishment open --Taco Bell -- and ended up renting Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson Lee's staged X-rated extravaganza. We did the nasty all day (no thanks to Tommy and Pam), convincing ourselves that what we were doing was life affirming. And it was.

-- Name withheld

My sister moved to Brooklyn on the night of Sept. 10. On the morning of the 11th, she and her best friend coped the best way they knew how: They climbed to their roof with a bottle of tequila, watched the towers burn, and toasted the day with a black-humor contest. Whoever could think of the grimmest, ugliest, most horrifying joke would win.

My sister called out, "To an unobstructed view of lower Manhattan!" and tossed off her tequila. The winning toast turned out to be, "To employment opportunities in the New York Fire Department!"

-- Ivy

I frantically called a friend's cellphone in lower Manhattan. An elementary school teacher, he was evacuating students when I rang. He was in sight of the just fallen towers. He said, "When the radio played 'It's Raining Men' this morning, I didn't realize they were serious." When I reminded him of this charming comment some months later, he didn't remember making it.

-- Robert O' Shaughnessy, Washington

On Friday Sept. 14, I was in a shopping mall getting some last-minute items for a vacation trip the following day. I had mixed feelings about taking the trip, but it was too late to change the dates. On my way out I saw two people walking through the mall carrying candles, and I saw three others standing outside as I left. I held my tongue, but what I really wanted to say was, "You're deeply moved by the recent events, and the only place you can think of to share your grief is a shopping mall? Why not go to the church or house of worship of your choice? Or maybe the mall is your house of worship?"

Driving home, I saw a bunch of people on a busy street corner. One of them was waving a big American flag and people were trying to get drivers to honk their horns. It was all I could do to keep from rolling down the window and shouting: "Thousands of people lost their lives, and you're acting like your team just won the World Series."

-- Mitch Hellman

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