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#41 I Got Robbed After 9/11 (Where’s My Money?)

Posted by NWSO • September 11, 2009 • Printer-friendly

In case you missed the memo, today marks the eighth anniversary of 9/11. By time you read this you will have already been bombarded with depressing news coverage and memories of the tragedy that occurred that fateful morning. Well, that’s not what you’re about to read.

You’re welcome.

Following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, very few people dared venture to Manhattan unless they absolutely had to. Most people’s offices were closed and employees remained home trying to wrap their heads around what happened.

How could two planes just crash into the towers? Who was responsible? What was next?

After about two days of forced hibernation, most people were getting cabin fever—especially folks like myself who lived way out in the boonies of Queens. Tired of watching the news, which was just non-stop coverage of Ground Zero, I needed to get out of the house. I called up my boy Travis and he suggested I come out to Brooklyn.

We didn’t have a plan, but it didn’t take much to convince me.

Once I arrived in the borough of Kings (sorry, that’s what it’s called) Travis and I decided to do what we always did to kill time back then—grab some drinks. We made our way over to Fort Greene, Brooklyn to check out this bar on Myrtle Ave. called Sol (it’s no longer there now).

New York had a different vibe after 9/11. You could just feel something was off in the air. Instead of the trademark scowls, people just had this blank stare on their faces. If anyone made eye contact there was this shared sense of connection that was expressed without words—usually through an uneasy smile.

Eventually, Travis and I arrived at Sol and grabbed a pair of open seats at the bar. The place was surprisingly crowded for a weeknight but I guess more city refugees had the same idea. When in doubt, drink to your heart’s content.

That’s exactly what Travis and I did.

I was still a brown-liquor-drinker back then so Henny and Coke was my likely indulgence that night. After about four rounds, Travis and I were good and toasty and the stress of what happened across the bridge momentarily escaped our inebriated minds.

Mission accomplished.

We flagged down the bartender and asked to cash out. The bill came and it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $80. Travis and I were just lowly assistants at the time so that was pretty steep to us. Actually, that’s pretty high-priced for drinks now.

I didn’t have that much cash on me so Travis gave me his share and I put the whole bill on my debit card. When it came time to sign off I stumbled with my calculations of the tip. Although I know better now, to a 24-year-old a $5 tip sounded about right for an $80 tab.

I left my John Hancock on the bill, slid five bucks in with the receipt and stumbled out the door. Travis retreated back home, while I made the pilgrimage back to Queens.

A couple weeks went by and New York slowly regained a bit of its normalcy back. I mean, as much as could be expected following the destruction of the Twin Towers and America’s sense of security.

Falling back into my regular routine, I came home from work one day and sorted through my mail. Among the junk and bills was my monthly bank statement. Once I got settled in I began balancing my checkbook.

Everything appeared in order except for a mysterious $100 deduction that I couldn’t account for. The only unbalanced entry was the $80 for drinks with Travis after 9/11. Being the organized individual that I am, I still had my receipts for the past few weeks and pulled up the one for Sol and sure enough I signed off on $80 not $100.

Maybe they had automatic gratuity and charged me for 15-percent. I crunched the numbers and 15-percent of $80 wasn’t no 20 bucks. Plus, I left $5 in cash so that would make for a $25 tip.

Oh, hell nah!

Either the bartender made a mistake or someone was trying to get over. Whatever the case was I wasn’t having it. I got the number to Sol off the receipt and gave them a call. I wound up speaking to the manager, who expressed his concern for the mix up and said he’d look into it.

Before getting off the phone, the manager grabbed my mailing address and promised to drop a check for $20 in the mail along with a gift certificate for a free meal.

Sounded simple enough, but things never are as easy as they seem.

I called every few days for weeks about my money to no avail. I either got the voicemail or whoever answered the phone said the manager was unavailable. I would have just gone down to the place, but since I lived in Queens I was never in that area, so it was really out of my way.

Still, I wasn’t going to give up.

Finally, sometime around Christmas I got the manager back on the phone. He apologized profusely for his lack of communication and said how he was out of town and this had slipped through the cracks. I didn’t care about the excuses I just wanted my money.

A week later I checked my mailbox and was greeted by a plain white envelope with my name and address handwritten. I opened it up and sure enough there was my check for 20 bucks. At the end of the day it didn’t really matter. Some may say I jumped through a lot of hoops over a few dollars, but I work hard for my money and I’ll be damned if somebody gets me for it. Besides, it was the principle of it.

Oh, and the gift certificate the manager had promised me was nowhere to be found. Didn’t really matter, though, I never went back to that place ever again.

Fin!

How did you deal with the 9/11 tragedy the days following the attack? Did you surround yourself with friends and family? Did you notice a change in how people interacted with each other on the street? Where were you when you heard/saw the news? How often do you balance your checkbook? Have you ever been overcharged at a restaurant before? Have you ever had to track someone down for money they owed you? How long did it take to get it back? Should I have just forgotten about the money?

Speak your piece…

Tagged as: 9/11, restaurant, tipping, Twin Towers, waitress, World Trade Center

GV1584

I was in a maths lesson in my final year of high school when my teacher broke the news about the planes hitting the towers. Suffice to say we were all shocked and speechless. I rang up my cousin in the States (not that he lived anywhere near NYC but I thought I could hear more about it straight from someone who lived in the same country!) Anyway, turns out he'd been living in a hole and I was the first one to inform him of the news. The dude was studying furiously for some medical exam and refused to be distracted by tv/internet etc! I was hooked to the TV footage and the enormity of the event was just unfathomable. They've been playing all kinds of 9/11 movies here in the UK on some channels every evening for the past week. I made my first visit to NYC 5 years after this happened so of course I went to visit Ground Zero and I remember even after all those years there was this eerie silence there with all the tourists paying their respects.

$20 is a material amount of money so I would have done exactly what you did. Above all though, it's definitely about the principle. We all work damn hard for every penny so if I had not got my money back by Christmas as you did, I would definitely have chased them for it until I got it back. I would rather just give that money to someone who deserves it than be too lazy to try and get it back. I manage my finances every month when my credit card statement comes through. This overcharging situation has not yet happened to me but I'll be sure to put up a hot pursuit when it does! lol
distinguishedgentlewoman

I wish I could forget 9/11. It brings back so many horrible memories for me.

I had decided the night before to play hookey from work and just relax. So the morning of 9/11, I was in fact watching the movie 28 Days during the time that the planes were crashing into the towers. So I was oblivious to what was going on in the world. When the movie ended and I called my supervisor about 10:30 to let her know I wasn't coming in, she told me what had happened. And when I turned the TV back on, there was utter chaos everywhere on my screen. I went crazy, because my mother worked right across the street and sometimes went to the World Trade Center post office early in the morning to beat the morning rush. I tried calling her office and her cell. Nothing. She finally reached home about 2:30 after walking home across the Bridge. Needless to say, the hours between the time that I found out what was happening and the time she came through the door were some of the worst hours of my life. And for weeks after, I had horrible nightmares every night. And ever since that day, I have horrible panic attacks whenever I take plane trips. I have to make sure I haven't slept the night before so that as soon as I sit on the plane I fall completely asleep immediately. And hopefully by the time I wake up, I'm well on my way to my destination. And thank God for the iPod and the power of prayer when I do wake up before my trip is over and I need to channel my thoughts on something positive.

So on the anniversary, I totally avoid the coverage on TV, because I see it as just dredging up a lot of bad memories and accomplishing nothing. I instead pray for all of us. I pray for the families who have lost loved ones, for the souls that were lost, and for all the people who are still experiencing the effects of that horrible day.

BTW: What the heck is going on at Ground Zero? And why is nothing built there after eight years?
Mz. Ashley

I was in my 8th grade 1st hour class. Class just started so it was about 8:30am. This dude Justin went to the office and came back and said turn on the TV, somebody just crashed a plane in the Twin Tower. So we turned the TV on and was watching it...all of a sudden we see something come out of the corner of the screen and crash into the 2nd building...this shocked us all. Even though i was in the 8th grade and have never been to NYC, i was hurt deeply because it is just a sad situation. Seeing those people jump out the buildings was so sad. I feel for anyone who was in that situation or had family in that situation. I have on my red, white and blue today just to show a little respect.

I am all about my money. I feel like i work hard for it, so if someone is trying to screw me over, they are going to be aggervated until i get my money back! I feel you on your $20 and would have done the same!
Lonias

#1
Thanks for not recounting (for the 8th time) the 9/11 and the days following...I am so much more interested in what solutions we are coming up with in order to move forward...

#2
Glad you got your money back!
That's rare and you know it...
DC Man With a Plan

This is a very memorable day bcuz 9/11 was such a horrific event to have happen HERE! You point out, however, how easily we desire to move on--At least all of us who did not have a loved one perish in the tragedy, but then again, tragedies happen EVERY day, just not on that scale. And for real, even ppl who lose a loved one, eventually they try to move on; you never forget, but you have to move forward with life. I do not want to get stuck in forced remembrances. Most of our holidays are primarily viewed as 3 day weekends, the purpose long forgot or barely acknowledged. What WAS the genesis of Labor Day? (don't answer--it's rhetorical...but you get my meaning?)
Anywho, I was just recently out of the AF when 9/11 occurred. I dropped my son off at child care and was returning home to get ready for work, which was going to involve a midnight circuit activation for the FAA.........I heard the news on the radio, got home and flipped on the TV and was just in a trance of disbelief........I received calls from family members bcuz of the DC area flight into the Pentagon.........and bcuz during stressful, inexplicable moments, families just want to reach out....Needless to say, I did no work that day. The FAA wasn't allowing any changes to their network, phone system--nuttin! And I wasn't REALLY interested in doing any work either........I went and retrieved my son...chilled and tried to grasp how such things occur......How hate and evil evolve to calamity...how dirt done in the middle east, Africa and other places, finds it way back to US, in the USA, the land of God's innocent ppl.......but then again, ALL lands hold some of God's innocent ppl...THAT's what I wanna try to remember about 9/11. The tear stained faces of mother's all over the world when innocent lives are taken.
Kyva

Being that 09/11/01 was my 21st bday, I always try to celebrate life and be thankful for my blessings on this day. Thanks for a wonderful article. I always enjoy your work
Ms.Nikki

Did she just say she was in the 8th grafe when it happen?!? Wow, I feel old!
Elle

@Ms.Nikki

I know right... I was like wtf...8th grade?

@topic

I'll never forget that day - even though I was nowhere near NYC. My ex had just moved to Germany and I dropped him off at language school after our dentist appointments. When I returned home, I hadn't turned on the TV all day (we're 6 hrs ahead) and had no intentions to until later that night either. However, I checked my answering machine and on it was a message from my girl Gesa who was completely losing it. I didnt get a word she was saying, just something about Chris (her bf at the time) being on his way to NYC, and planes, and buildings destroyed. Gesa has a tendency to be a drama queen, so I figured eh, she is exaggerating. And then I turned on the TV ....

I would have chased my money as well. It's not the amount, but the principle. I gotta do it all the time with the way everyone is trying to get over folks these days. Not Elle though. Wrong chick.
http://girlshesgottahaveit.blogspot.com/ Jennifer

I was in high school (10th grade) when this all went down. The morning went from calm to crazy as the news unravelled and everyone went frantic trying to get in touch with their families. In Brooklyn we were far enough from danger but close enough to see the ashes and embers floating in the air as we tried to get home after early dismissal. I'm always so grateful that no one I knew personally was taken away because of that day, but as a New Yorker who lived through it, it will forever be engrained in my memory.

I interned for the organization responsible for rebuilding the towers and actually got to visit the site last summer. It was SURREAL walking down in the pit where these larger than life buildings once stood. People complain that they're taking too long to put the site back together but a lot of work and politics goes into that project.

I've never balanced my checkbook because for as long as I've had my own checking account, there has been online banking (I'm a young'n, sue me). I just check that at the end of the day and make sure everything looks right and it usually does.
Kwana AKA OrangeStar AKA Phoenix7

I was at work @ another agency here in downtown DC, I had just came back from CVS when I saw people running out of the FBI building and somewhat panicking in the streets. I made my back to office hurriedly and thats when I was told a plane hit the world trade center, I was like a plane, thinking a small glider or something, so I gets up to the 5th floor and in ERO they had a tv and were watching the news coverage.
Thats when I actually saw what happned to the first tower, then the heard about the Pentagon, saw photage of the second tower, then one tower crumbled and thats when we evacutated..total pandemonium, whyte folk crying in the street traffic everywhere, no one wanted to get on the subway.
I got a ride home which normally was 10 mins but it took two hours.
@ the time I was living with my mom, she had kind panicked earlier when the Pentagon got hit and she couldn't reach me all celll phones service went kaput, no cells were working, I spent the remainder of evening home and the next day or so til they opened gov buildings again.....everything was very quiet that afternoon and evening in the streets, no one knew what was gonna happen next. people were scared. And then nothing was ever quite the same.
You can't forget 9/11 even if you wanted to.
Rasheida Downing

It was sad you cannot forget this girl that is in my English comp class she said that her friends moms and family died and i know it just hard.i wasn't their but you feel in your heart what people went through during 9/11 and it brings tears to my eyes we don't want to forget about the people also who was in Hurricane Katrina and the list could go on and on. That's why everybody alt to pray no matter what the circumstances should be we have to pray to make it today. I'm sorry about you getting robbed that would suck.sometime people just don't give a dam in this world but they'll have to answer to god for that
LaLa

Ans, I just wrote about this on my blog. I actually went into the city the following friday. Manhattan was like a horror movie, an eerie ghost town when a zombie comes out and eats your ass! The feel of the city hasn't been the same since. Luckily, my gut feeling told me to stay home that day. My gut also kept me home for that blackout too! Ever since, I never question my intuition.
CB

I unfortunately will never forget 9/11. I had planned to go into work late that day because there were the primaries for mayor that morning in NY and I planned to vote before work. I worked at American Express and our building was connected to the World Trade towers by a pedestrian bridge. Anyhoo... my boyfriend at the time had stayed the night and we left around the same time that morning, I to finally go to the office and he to his job.

One of my boys called me on the train (took the J in to work and it was above ground) when he asked if I was at the office yet, I said "no, why?" and then he told me how a plane had crashed into the first tower. I figured it was a small propeller plane and the pilot must have been drunk. Other passengers started receiving texts and we could see the smoke and some hints of fire from the train in the area of the tower. THe train went underground after that and when I got to the Fulton St stop all hell had broken loose. People were running everywhere, screaming, crying...by then the second plane had hit.

The whole scenario was unbelievable... cell phones were dead so we didn't know what was real and what wasn't. I'd heard terrorists blew up the White House, the Sears Tower, the Golden Gate bridge, Holland Tunnel... we didn't know what was and wasn't true. My boyfriend had gotten off the train with me to make sure I got to work ok so he was just as confused but because we were together we stayed calm. My crazy butt was still trying to get to my office to see if my colleagues were ok, but the cops weren't even hearing me trying to walk down the block.

I waited on line for about 45 mins for a pay phone to tell my family I was safe and that I was walking back to Brooklyn. Since I figured the Brooklyn bridge might get attacked I started walking up Broadway to head to the Williamsburg bridge. I think I had gotten to Leonard Street when I saw a rush of folks running towards me (that's when the first tower fell). My boyfriend and I walked across the bridge into Brooklyn and I caught the bus home. I had tons of calls my home phone from friends, colleagues and family checking to see if I were alive and safe. Thank God my immediate co-workers made it out safely, but I did lose two friends I knew from college and 11 colleagues from the company had also perished.

Unfortunately I didn't have any time to grieve... I worked in Amex's Foundation, and they planned to build a fund to support the 11 colleagues families and to create a disaster relief fund, so I was back at work the very next day in Jersey City... I saw the burning, smoldering remains every day and smelled the fumes of burning flesh for over a month...not a happy memory. One memory I will cherish though is how all of our NY Amex employees met at MSG (Madison Square Garden) for a town hall where our CEO greeted us, cried with us and comforted us all and reminded us that we would rebound and bounce back.

Our headquarter office was closed for over 18 months but we moved back in 2003. We did a memorial service that September... that was the first time I cried and got all of my emotions out and truly thanked God that I was still alive.