I worked at McDonald’s when I was in high school. Occasionally someone’s order would ring up to $6.66, and more than once I had someone hand me $6.70 or $6.75 or whatever and tell me, “just keep the change.”
Nobody ever tells you “just keep the change” at McDonald’s so I am reasonably certain this was an attempt to trick the Devil. Apparently the Devil can be foiled with a nickel and a few pennies.
Yeah, well, he’s a bit weak there. He can write a contract for a soul that it takes Daniel Webster to get out of, but he’s never really gotten a handle on small change.
I saw a car in my neighborhood with the license plate 666 JHG, where the JHG are my initials. I was tempted to make an offer to buy the car then and there.
Similarly, when I worked retail people would occasionally come up with a $6.66 total, and they almost always added a pack of gum to “fix” the problem (apparently the devil is only notified when the transaction is completed, not when a subtotal is rung up). Unless, of course, they were kids, in which case it was “Awesome!” and then we all got on with our lives.
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is a dumb thing indeed. And a really, really hard word to pronounce on first sight.
They’re beter off without him on the payroll. He’d get scrofula and insist their insurance pay for Queen Elizabeth to touch him.
This one time, at band camp…
Whoops, wrong story.
This one time I was working retail when the total came up as $6.66 and the guy said “That’s about how my day’s been going.” and we just laughed and got on with our lives.
And 666 isn’t even the number of the beast.
Here, listen to Stephen Fry explain it, he does a much better job than I ever would.
Isn’t there some argument that it’s actually supposed to be 616 and not 666? Something about transliterating Nero’s name or somesuch.
What would he do if he got a tax form with both 666 and 888, the supposed ‘number of Jesus’?
You should have. I’ll bet the owner would have offered you the car for free!
…Just sign right here…
I had always heard that it referred to Caesar and not the devil.
You can’t fix stupid.
But you can sure take their money!
I used to work for one of the biggest payroll companies in the country. Small business services, specifically, for clients with usually 10 or less employees.
We had calls from folks to change their client codes for both code “666” and code “JEW”.
We used a random assortment of 3 alpha-numerics, so we would occasionally see legit words. AND, THE, WAS, 123, ETC, etc. etc. etc.
Yeah, that’s the problem with 3 letters. Our state recently went from 2 to 3, and now you see all sorts of words showing up on tags.
This is nothing. I worked with some devout Baptist types who saw devils under every scrap of paper and in every random coincidence. It would have driven me crazy if I didn’t have to spend so much time choking back laughter.
Thought I’d drop in again to mention that the last three digits of my driver’s license are 666.
Man, have I ever had fun mocking the religious whackos over the years.
Hey Oak, would you mind stepping over here, onto this nice pile of sticks? Just make yourself comfortable, may get a little warm but don’t mind that. I’m going to back away now . . .
I was boarding a place with a logo on the outside advertising their “One World Alliance” (or something like that–I can’t be arsed to google to find the actual name and the carrier). The lady in front of me told her kids something like “Oh, we know what THAT’s all about, don’t we?”
I once lived in apartment 13 and had post office box 666. I used to say that the people at the post office apparently recognized me and gave me the appropriate number.
The beast lives in Puerto Rico?