Grumbling Tummy

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Those of a nervous or biblical disposition may wish to look away now.

Yesterday was a day for buying some bits and pieces from the local butchers - nothing of any real significance there. Well not until the total was tallied up and came to the grand sum of £6.66. Warning number one that reminded me of a sequence of events many years ago, a story we’ll come back to in a moment.

Today saw another alarming moment whilst driving along to the local shop: the trip meter on the car turned to 666 miles. Warning number two in my book!

Perhaps warning number 3 will see the “End of Days” visited upon us! You have been warned and you may wish to reread the Book of Revelations to know what cometh this way. Repent for tomorrow may see the final “666” and you may well be fucked from getting into the Kingdom of God. Or maybe it’s just a load of old bollocks!!!

Now back to the event a few years back…

Dave Barr, a fellow engineer at Motorola, and I flew out to the US for a training course in sunny San Diego. A great time was had by all and we met some very interesting Americans - more of this in a future blog post. With the course over we made our way back to the UK via a two day stop over in Austin, where we visited with our colleagues in the Motorola plant. One evening we thought that it would be a bit different to go out for dinner, so into the car we jumped and with Dave acting as chauffeur we proceed to drive along the streets of Austin and onto the Interstate.

Before long we were struggling to find anywhere to eat, not really that surprising when you consider we were travelling along a motorway class road at 70 mph! About thirty minutes into this futile mission the decision to turn off the Interstate to find somewhere to eat was taken. Steadily the road changed into hick country roads with no street lighting and mile after mile of observable countryside. We must have drove along those roads for forty minutes before come to the alarming conclusion that perhaps we were lost! Just at that very moment, with the car sipping away at the last few drops of fuel fumes and with an intensifying fear of being lost and coming to harm, the road dipped down into “Devil’s Creek”!

I don’t know what made me look at the mile-o-meter at that particular moment or in that particular place, but fate played a cruel trick as it scrolled around to 666 miles. Both Dave and I came across all “someone’s walking over my grave” [shudder]. Needless to say we both thought it was a sign and we’d be unlikely to live through that night!

I was even heard to exclaim, “We’re going to die tonight!”

If memory serves me correct, I’m almost certain that Dave screamed out like a little girl at the thought of dying in hickville with an empty stomach!

Luckily, about 15 miles down the road we found a lone service station that provided the facilities to feed the car with fuel and to get direction back to the Interstate. We quickly made our way back to Austin, ending up at a restaurant only minutes away from the hotel. At least we were safe and sound, well for the time being….

During that trip I was amazed and startled at the lack of security for internal flights! I even commented to Dave how easy it would be for a terrorist to take advantage of this situation. Sadly, a few years later my words came back to haunt the world as we saw 911 change things forever.

Technorati Tags: 666, 911, Auston, Book of Revelations, Dave Barr, End of Days, End Times, Motorola, San Diego, Texas