I was at an In-n-Out

I was at an In-n-Out when I heard the news.

"Osama Bin Laden is dead". I think it was Fritz who told me. We were in the process of driving back from Sacremento, flush with excitement and listening to 90s grunge jams. Then the moment was transformed from a trip to being aware of the sudden course of history.
At the time we'd heard a bomb was dropped on him. The story, flipping between the news channels on the AM spectrum of the car later was a bit muddled. Osama Bin Laden was either on a convoy, in a mansion or in a cave and had a drone attack or a ground team come in.

Almost 10 years ago, I experienced a similar sense of confusion. I was in German class, sitting next to a very good friend, whose "German name" was also Fritz. That detail isn't important, but there's always an interesting parallel. The words were easy to understand, but I interpreted it as a Cessna had collided with the World Trade Center building in Minneapolis. That was the first thing my brain went to. After all, there was no way possible for a full-size airliner to crash into the heart of finance. Things like that just didn't happen.

September 11, 2001 is really when the decade I call 'The Naughts' actually starts. After that, there's a massive mindset change. The world is suddenly capable of seeing the boogeyman, and we all could think like terrorists. We'd entered a world where there was suddenly so much more to fear. We grew to accept the idea that bombs could be held in shoes, in water and in our underwear. We saw those actual bombs on subways and busses. IED now means something to most of us.

I think of Nirvana as one of those defining symbols which also showed the end of another decade. The 80s didn't end in 1990, because in a lot of ways, the early 90s felt a lot like the 80s. The 80s didn't end when the cold war ended because that war existed beyond the span of a single decade. I think the success of Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" has to be when the 80s end. It's about as arbitrary as any other marker, but it was when a great cynicism began and everything became corporate, but the idea of a marketable "alternative" has caused a lot more good than harm.

I don't know if the death of the most-wanted man in the world means that the decade of 2000s is actually over. I don't know what's going to happen next. I hope it's good. And I hope I'm at another in-n-out when it happens