Satan's Sixes Sunday

Today we see the start of my collection of "666" items.

Claim tickets.

Once upon a time, when you went to a fast food restaurant they would write the order on a pad with a serial number printed on the main part of the form and again on a tear-off tab. The kitchen would get the written up order and you would get the claim ticket with the matching serial number. When the food was ready they'd call your number. You'd turn in (or at least show) the ticket to get the chow.

I had heard that people avoided things associated with 666 and had noticed that things like claim tickets frequently show up with 666.

I would be thrilled when my claim ticket ended with "666." If getting a claim ticket with 666 in its serial number marked me as a servant of The Beast, then I was one of them many times over.

Of course, so was everyone else.

I started saving claim tickets to prove that it was silly to be afraid of things simply because they have the magic number in them.

Until now, I've never offered this proof except to a few friends and family. Now the worried of the world are learning how mistaken they are.

Here are some samples of the beginning of my hobby. They don't have dates (at least not the year) on them so I can't really know when this hobby began.

I can't be certain where these first three tickets came from. I'm guessing they're from El Indio. A bunch of us would take a long lunch hour every Thursday and go to El Indio. We went on Thursdays to get the San Diego Reader. That free weekly gave us investigative reporting, movie reviews, schedules of events,  comics ("Life in Hell," "Ernie Pook's Comeek"), etc. But mostly we went for the food.

Here's one from Naugles, a Mexican drive thru. Naugles merged with Del Taco in 1988 so this ticket comes from before then.

My favorite snack from Naugles was their "Macho Nachos." They were chips, beans, cheese and salsa. They weren't terribly macho. When you ordered them, the cashier would holler to the cooks "Nachos! Make 'em macho!" I loved that.

 The claim tickets at El Indio eventually got customized.

My favoritest claim ticket is this one. Our group was in line and I saw that the order pad was approaching "666." I was hoping that I would get it. Unfortunately, another in the group (Marshall, I think) got it and I ended up with 667. The amazing thing is that of all the sheets in the pad this one was misregistered and shows two extra digits.

It turns out that Marshall is the true Beast. But I convinced him that this belongs in my collection. Thanks, Marshall!

This last one is kind of lame. It's here simply because the restaurant's phone number ends with 666.

Apparently the restaurant doesn't exist anymore. They've gone to hell.