The other day I bought a pack of ground beef priced at $6.66. The cashier thought it was funny, but the bagger lady was worried for me.
I guess tomorrow night we’ll find out if she’s on to something.
How do you laugh in the face of superstition?
The bus I take home from school is usually the “137” however one day it arrived with the numbers “666” emblazoned on it’s sign-thing. Truly this was the Bus of the Beast.
I don’t laugh at superstition; I tend to roll my eyes and sigh instead… especially about the example stated.
You’d be surprised at the number of times that price comes up as total or change due and even more surprised at how stupidly a lot of people react to it – I’ve actually had people put items back or buy a pack of gum just to avoid it. Even people that were on tight budgets as evidenced by their food stamp cards or WIC vouchers.
I have also had £6.66 come up a lot when I worked the tills. I guess that here in the UK it isn’t that much of a problem since no-one has battered a eyelid when I tell them the price.
Aside from price I am slightly curious about one such “evil” occurance. At my uni the halls of residence are organised by Court, Apartment and Room. I’d love to know who lives at Court 6, Apt. 6, Room 6. :dubious: :eek:
Everyday at work, there’s the Blessing of the Snot. When someone sneezes, there’s at least three "bless you"s.
It’s just a sneeze, people, not a demonic possession!
I also laugh it off, although I think my favorite occurance of this type of thing was when I went to the local Christian bookstore to buy a tiny gift for my grandmother. The total came up to $6.66, which made the woman behind the counter titter nervously a bit. Then I realized I had no cash on me, and no cards, so I had to (how archaic is this?) write a check. As I’m recording the amount in the register, I note the check number: 666.
And as I hand her the check 666 written for $6.66, she noticed the pentacle ring* on my right hand. :smack: I thought she was going to faint, scream or both. I started laughing hysterically, which probably didn’t help matters any.
She took the check though. But she made the sign of the cross over it several times before putting it in her till. :rolleyes:
*And before anyone asks, I don’t wear the pentacle out of a superstitious belief in its power, I wear it so other neopagans will notice and know we have something in common.
I know, Aesiron, I’ve had several cashiering jobs. I’ve always enjoyed the horror it causes some people. Why not get a laugh out of it?
I have only one superstition that I can think of. In my current job slinging espresso, we never, EVER comment on how slow it is (jinx-now you’re getting slammed!), or how easy the shots are pulling (the bar knows when you’re over-confident and will mess with your head). I know it’s just an inanimate object and customers aren’t waiting for me to comment that we’re slow, but taunting the superstition never seems to fail to produce the expected results.
Which leads me to comment: WhyNot, you truly are blessed. I died laughing and am green with envy that I wasn’t there to witness your brush with evil. You must have been in hysterics. Thanks for sharing; your story is going to get some mileage around here! 
My bill for replacing two new front end struts on my car cost $666.
Mind you the damage was an accident, so I just knew I was being fucked with.
BTW, I’m not religious. But I do believe in being fucked with.
I intentionally have 666 in my cell phone number. My wife set up the account many years ago, and given three choices for phone numbers thought the one with 666 would be my favorite. She was right in spades.
Not that I believe in that stuff. Laughing in the face of silliness is just my thing.
Sorry if my reply came off snarky… that wasn’t my intent. I’m just easily annoyed by some things and being an atheist raised in the South, religious superstitions is one of them.
By the way, WhyNot, you’re my hero.
The place I work has the same superstition about saying we’re slow. We also never say things like, “I hope it’s slow, I’m tired/don’t feel well.” or mention the things we’ll work on if it’s slow.
Several years ago we had a dog patient with seizures, this dog was in so often he had a very thick file that we kept out in a file-holder on the main desk. However, no one was allowed to touch the file or say the dog’s name because anytime they did, he would come in within a couple nights. He was also a rare seizure patient that got worse on valium, so we had to find some way to always inform new staff so that when he did come in seizuring they wouldn’t immediately administer valium. We’d usually tell them of his condition, the superstition and tell them to read and learn his name on the file but not to say it out loud. New people wouldn’t believe us until they saw the phenomenon happen themselves. Unfortunately he finally had to be put to sleep after several years of this. He was a rare nice chihuahua and had a really nice family too. This was several years ago, I still remember that dog’s name … but I won’t say it.
A few days ago I noticed that I made my 666th post, I think the post had a typo … how eeeevil. 
A few years ago, here in Oklahoma, there was a State Question dealing with (I think) the funding of the public libraries—State Question 666. There was quite a bit of local news coverage about it at the time. The proponents of the Question tried to get its number changed, but to no avail (not because they were superstitious about the number, but because they knew that there were people out there who were who would vote against the Question simply because of it). For what it’s worth, the proposal lost.
Amazing.
Well, it’s not like he’s coming back AGAIN!
It’s bad luck to be superstitious.
Well, it is Halloween. . .
A while back I calculated that I would need 0x29A hex bytes to make enough space for something in the project I’m working on at work. In decimal, 0x29A = 666. After that (and for various other reasons) we started referring to it as the project from hell.
I kinda forgot about it until Friday, when a co-worker leans out from his cubicle and says “I put the anti-christ on your plc, hope you don’t mind.” I gave him this “huh” look, and he reminded me “since this is the project from hell.” I looked over on the screen, and sure enough, there was the value 666 in a register we were testing.
Yeah, I know, us engineers need to get out more.
No harm done. Admittedly, I’m a notorious eye-roller. OTOH, I tend to capitalize on the discomfort of others when it’s as inane as this particular superstition. Waaaay more fun!
This reminds me of one of my favorite Bill Cosby lines:
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me! I’ll roll that head of yours on the floor!”
What is going on the porch and yelling, “Any vampires within earshot, you’re all invited in,” if not challenging superstition? 
(Besides a somewhat cruel yet quite effectively revealing means of measuring credulity among my friends and acquaintances, depending on how they respond to my suggesting the above when I’m at their domicile.)
Leave it to Oklahoma to raise a stink about it… :rolleyes: