post 9/11

A while after the terrorist events of 2001 I became aware that many of my acquaintances had altered their behavior ever so slightly. So I began to inquire about the changes. Some people said they would never now leave their cell phones at home. Now, that seems quaint, but then cell phones were not as ubiquitous. The attacks turned us all into that woman on a dark road at night with a flat tire – living in fear of being caught incommunicado. Some people said they avoid tall buildings, others that they avoid elevators. Some, who’d not heard the news for hours, said they now always keep a radio on softly tuned to the news to avoid that state of not-knowing. As instructed by Homeland Security (the agency that brought us color coded states of alert) many began to keep cash and non-perishable food on hand at all times. For others, the car’s gas tank is never allowed to skip below half full. Or half empty. We face east. Or west. These are the small concessions to the world that 9/11 has wrought. But the survey I took was years ago, just months after the attacks. I wonder now, what habits remain? What vestigial behaviors do we keep not even remembering their origin?