Damien

I’m strangely fascinated with numerology, and I think it’s because a lot of what I study has to do with finding the relationships and significance in sets of numerical data. If it weren’t for the fact that I usually have my hands full with a crossword puzzle during my lunch breaks, I could easily become one of those quiet nerds you’ve seen playing Suduko.

I think people in general are innately drawn to numerology too, because numbers can be pretty damn creepy if you allow them to be. Here’s an example. A couple years back, I would have classes from 8 to 10 AM every day and then go home to take a nap before starting my afternoon classes. Well, I remember there was once a two-week span where every morning I would wake up from those naps, on my own, at exactly 11:11 AM (my alarm was set for 11:30 and I always seemed to wake up early). Imagine how kooky that was, waking up every day and always seeing the red numbers “11:11” on my digital clock. It was deja vu played on auto-repeat.

Lots of weird New Age losers have also experienced this phenomenon as well: COINCIDENCE AND 11:11.

During my sophomore year of high school, I was convinced that 1998 — not the year 2000 — would be when the end of the world would occur. I was so certain of it that when I watched the ball drop in Times Square that year, I flinched. If you’d like to know the horror I felt that one day I was bored during study hall and made a chilling discovery, pull out a calculator and divide the number 1998 by the number 3 (the Trinity) and look at the result you’ll get. You’ll scream.

I came across that number again late last night, a little after I sent a friend of mine a link to this: http://tradefallingforyou.ytmnd.com. I’ve been sending that link to everyone on my AIM buddylist lately, because what’s on it is done in such extremely horrible taste, yet I can’t help but chuckle whenever I look at it. My friend wasn’t amused one bit. She IMed me, “Pete, that’s awful. You are definitely going to hell for this.”

I typed back, “lol. brb, gonna go to the gas station to buy a couple necessities.”

At the gas station, I bought myself a 4 oz. bottle of contact lens solution and a Slim Jim. You know, necessities. And there, right when the cashier rang up my total, is where I saw that number again. The cash register beeped the amount I needed to pay: $6.66.

“Oh... shit!” I excitedly said to the cashier. Out of habit, I patted my pockets to see if I had happened to bring my digital camera. “Look at that number! Look at how much I owe. That's freaky. I should probably throw in a another stick of gum or something, shouldn’t I?”

The cashier just laughed and rolled her eyes, dismissively saying, “Pffft. Ohh, God.”

“Not exactly,” I replied.