Over the past few months, I have done A LOT of travel, both for business and personal reasons. I’ve unfortunately had to have a number of meals at fast food joints, or fast casual restaurants. I am a creature of habit, so if I’m stopping at say McDonalds for a quick on-the-go breakfast, I tend to order the same thing.
One of my typical morning food/beverage combinations at one of the national chains comes to a total of $6.66. The breakfast of the beast!!! On at least 5 different occasions, I’ve had the cashier or person at the drive through window stumble over, or flat out refuse to say my total. I think it’s hilarious.
This morning this is how it went:
[ul]
[li]I place my order at the drive thru menu thing.[/li][li]Cashier say "your total will be…(pause)…[/li][li]Please pull up for your total[/li][li]I pull up[/li][li]she holds out her hand for payment., I ask “What is my total?”[/li][li]She taps on her keyboard and holds out a receipt like thing that shows the items I ordered and the total due[/li][li]I just smile and hand her my card.[/li][/ul]
She would never say the numbers, or even write them down. It took her a good 30 seconds on the point of sale system, she could have easily just written down $6.66 and handed me a slip of paper in less time.
I’ve had this exact thing happen now at least 5 or 6 times, with different locations, and different staff.
Really? In this enlightened time, we are still scared of the boogeyman hiding in three innocent little numbers?
Couldn’t you just say “Six dollars and sixty-six cents” or even just “Six sixty-six” instead of “Six six six?” Of course I’m not one to place any mystical importance on the number anyway.
I’ve never had anyone refuse to read it off to me but I’m in the Chicago suburbs so maybe that’s part of it. I’ve had people chuckle or make a joke about it but not just stare at the cash register in silent horror.
True story: While recording Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast, producer Martin Birch was in a car accident where the repair bill came to exactly £666. He refused to pay that amount and paid £667 instead.
When I got the cellphone number I use to this day, the woman handed me a sheet of numbers I could pick from. Two were highlighted. She explained they were numbers I wouldn’t want. One of them had 5 sixes, including three consecutive sixes. I selected that number. She completed the transaction, but wouldn’t look me in the eye.
So I grew up in Whitby, where many of the phone numbers were of the form xxx-666-xxxx. Didn’t stop anyone from giving out their number, though I joked with my stepbrother that I was the neighbour of the beast, because we were in the same housing co-op and he had a 666 number and ours was 668…
Fast forward a hundred years. Someone on a public forum will be commenting that back in the “un-enlightened” early 2000s, pompous prigs would actually condescendingly lambast the superstitious members of their society. Now that we know being superstitious is genetic, they’re born that way, they’re a protected minority and we’d never insult them … it would be very politically incorrect. Zero tolerance for superstition-intolerance.
I worked for a company about 6 to 8 years ago that made RF ID tags for new born babies. This was to stop infant abduction, and also allow positive matching of baby to mother in hospital. Our tag numbers went from 001 to 999. There was no 666 tag number. I imagine some mothers would get quite spooked being handed baby number 666.
Motor Vehicle Crashes on US Highway 666 in Shiprock, New Mexico
Jon S. Peabody, Class of 1988.
On the Navajo Reservation, injuries are the leading cause of death and the second leading cause of hospitalization. Motor vehicle related injuries surpass all other causes of death. A 1986 study of motor vehicle crashes in the Shiprock District revealed that 23% of all injury crashes occurred on US Highway 666, between milepost (MP) 92.7 and 93.6. The traffic volume was not considered greater than for other sections of highway in Shiprock, New Mexico (NM)
It’s stupid. My wife has rung up customers at 6.66, and they don’t want to pay that amount. So she says, OK, how about 6.67? THEN they get huffy about the extra penny.
I recall back in the late-'80s/early-'90s, hearing of people who would not say ‘hello’. The said ‘heaven-o’.
A friend once bought an LP in the '80s, might have been one from Wall Of Voodoo, and the total came to $6.66. The store was in Orange County, which was known for being a conservative place, and the clerk hesitated. My friend gave an evil look and said, ‘Heh heh heh heh…’
My social security number is more than half 6’s. Most people I need to tell it to are, of course, unfazed by it but sometimes it’ll get a reaction. My favorite was from the officer who gathered my information when I was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He let me know he didn’t like, “all them 6’s.” I tried to make some light-hearted reply but he told me, without any humor, “Well, I don’t like them.”
