On Grief
What We Think About When We Think About Red Lobster
The comfort of chain restaurants
This story is about Red Lobster, but first I must tell you where I was on 9/11.
I was less than a year out of law school when I watched the second plane go into the second tower. I was standing in front of a wall of windows in the cafeteria of a building on the corner of Varick and Houston, which held several federal government offices. We were on the top floor. My friend Nancy and I had heard about the first plane about five minutes before, and we immediately made our way up there to “watch.”
As we took the elevator up, I wondered what was wrong with the air traffic controllers in New York anyway? How could they allow a plane to fly into a building? Also, would I have time to get coffee?
We arrived to find our co-workers standing silently, watching the first tower burn. I joined them, and stood next to an administrative law judge, already in his robes. The second plane came into view and slowly flew into the second tower. Suddenly the judge was saying something. “Get the fuck out of here, we’re under attack.”
My brain was still stuck on the air traffic controllers. But the judge said “fuck,” and this snapped me out of it, and scared me more than the first…
