See? This is what I get for naming my blog something semi-blasphemous.
The only other time 666 has worked its way into my life was when CM, AV and I went to Jamaica. We arrived, straight from the chill of Minneapolis, to the tropical isle and boarded a bus. That bus took us on a life-threatening journey down narrow roads at speeds that I'm pretty sure rendered our lumbering, rickety ride completely out of control at times (with a short stop off for a beer at a roadside bar), and delivered us into temptation. Upon check in, we were given the keys to room 666. The three of us looked at each other, standing against the front desk with fruity "welcome" drinks in our hands, with eyebrows raised so high it nearly dislocated our hairlines. The pleasant woman behind the computer realized that she had just given us the room of the devil, and quickly tried to rectify that situation by placing a well-meaning but completely useless zero in front of the number on the paper key sleeve. We were staying in room 0666 for an entire, sinful week of Jamaican excess. Fear not, for we did not let that room down. We partied. Hardy.
I actually developed some kind of acid reflux to the rum punch I decided was a good substitute for...well...any other beverage. CM got lost in the curtains that separated our room and the small balcony overlooking the gorgeous rooftop of the lower part of the hotel. She was forced to fight with those rascally curtains for the better part of 10 minutes before just giving up, dropping to the ground, and crawling underneath them to get back inside the room. AV managed to get a strange but completely appropriate sunburn in the form of a stripe (a Red Stripe) down her entire body on one side. We made our second home at the dance club inside the hotel. We met a Christian rock band that offered us illegal drugs. We also met a group of guys from St. Louis or something like that who all dared each other to wear Speedos, and whom we affectionately and permanently nicknamed "Team Banana Hammock." We ate enough jerk chicken to make the poultry population of the island cluck in fear. We ordered conch balls at dinner, despite not having the faintest clue what they were...it just seemed right. We left the hotel once during the entire week and that was to go on a booze cruise and slide down a waterfall (we managed the waterfall fine, but fell during the booze cruise due to rough seas and even rougher equilibrium.). Between our days of sunning and drinking and our nights of dancing and drinking, we had a few hours to kill. We did that with AV's video camera and either a hairbrush or bottle of sunblock we treated as a microphone. We interviewed each other, people milling about in the twilight hours with nothing better to do, and the staff who were just trying to clean the pool. The best part was that eventually everyone would grab the hairbrush out of our hands and speak directly into the camera. We were the trio from 666, and people recognized. Or at least they knew we were off our rockers just enough to be entertaining. Plus we smelled like fried chicken and rum, so we were nigh irresistible.
One night we had the sliding glass doors to the balcony open, and as a strong breeze swept into our room it made a most notable sound as it passed through the door leading into the hallway. I can only describe it as a howling sound, and if I was skittish I might even say "demonic sounding." But we were too brave, too drunk, or too hungover (or some combination thereof) to find anything but humor in it. The sound got louder and louder as the wind picked up, and why wouldn't our room howl? It seemed so fitting. Who knows, maybe it was actually the sound of our livers begging for reprieve.
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