#I was the news editor for Dr Dobb's Journal--a magazine for programmers

[queen-susans-revenge]

I was commuting to work at my first real grown-up job, a journey that involved a train ride and then a short jaunt on a shuttle my employer provided to and from the station. I just listened to music as usual on the morning trip, but the shuttle driver had the radio on, and they were describing carnage at the World Trade Center.

I thought: oh, how fun, a radio drama in the style of "War of the Worlds", aiming for realism. Very cleverly done!

Halfway through the drive another woman on the shuttle began to audibly cry. I thought: oh no, it's just how when "War of the Worlds" aired people panicked, thinking it was real! Someone should tell her it's not real.

I waited for someone to tell her, but nobody did, and gradually I began to consider that perhaps it was not a radio drama.

When I got to work, nobody was working. They had set up a television and we all watched it, and that was when I too began to cry. Eventually the bosses came through and told us all to go home.

9/11 Poll but with even more options

Very broadly speaking when I made the poll initially I meant "watched" in the sense of "saw news reports on 9/11/2001 that included some video footage" and not in the sense of "watched video either live or recorded as the planes hit the towers" but people seem to be taking it very literally as watching footage of the planes hit the towers.