The Triple Twos

By Rusty Burkhalter

There was a time in eighth grade that I started seeing a number. The number was Triple twos. It has haunted me ever since. It all started when a friend of mine told me to look at the clock, and it was 2:22. This was the seventh hour class, so it was about time to go home. Well every day we stm1ed noticing the number, until a point where we noticed it at lunch also. It was 12:22 then. This started happening in the year 1999. Then one day we realized that it was the only two times at school that we saw each other. At lunch and we both had the same last hour class which was an art class. Well time went on, and it started getting to where we would look up all of the sudden and it would be that time. It was even happening at home and away from the house.

 

Well New Years came along and everybody was excited about the year 2000. It was still happening to us, but it did not seem like a big deal. Then February came along, and we said to each other that we would spend the whole day of2-22-2000 together. We did and nothing happened until that night. We were at my house and the phone rang. We were playing video games, so I put the game on hold to go answer the phone. I answered it and it was a recording of a psychic line wanting to know if I wanted two free readings. It started giving me a phone number, and I knew right then something weird was happening. The recording said “If you would like two free reading from our psychic from … call us at 1-800-222-####. I did not hear the last of it because I was kind of freaked out about it. I mean what kind of psychic line calls you. I did not call it back because I did not hear the last numbers. By now I am kind of weird about the whole thing. I told some people about the whole thing, but they did not believe me. They said it was the drugs that I was on that were doing it to me. I knew better then that. It kept happening to me over and over. It was happening not only on the clocks but everywhere I went. It would come from nowhere in the weirdest places. They kept telling me that it was a coincidence because it is a common number, but I knew better than that too. Finally my Mom started believing me. It was happening to even her sometimes. She told me not to tell my dad about it.

 

I think it was still the year 2000, but it could have been 2001, when my Dad took me and my sister on a vacation. We went on a week vacation from Oklahoma to North Carolina on the highway, and then came back through Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. In one of those states I told my Dad about the numbers I was seeing. We were at the motel when I told him. He did not really say much about it. Well the next morning we went to breakfast at a restaurant, and when we was leaving we stopped to pay the waitress. Our total came out to be $22.22. This really did happen; My Dad just looked at me and smiled. That was not the end of it though. Somewhere in Kentucky or Virginia we pulled into one of those historical markers on the side of the road, and were looking at what happen there. There was some kind of war at the site. Dad made a joke about the date all the marker He said look at the date on the marker it is today’s date and is two days away from being home”. The date was May 22. The date on the marker was May 22. I took it serious. The whole thing seemed to get weirder every day. These numbers kept on haunting me.

 

Year after year the same thing kept happening. There were all kinds of material about the number and other numbers. Obviously I was not the only one seeing this stuff. I looked up a few of them, and their stories were so much like mine. They would wake up in the middle of the night and it would be 2:22. One day I found an old Bible my Mom had bought a long time before. It was a 365 day Bible, the ones you are supposed to read in 365 days. Well I got curious and looked up day 222. I read the chapters and did not think much of it. I went to day 223 and found the passage in Ecclesiastics when Solomon talks about there being a time for everything. I put it down and went on with my life. In 2002 my Mom pulled me some stories about some people that were going through the same stuff that I was. I read a little bit of it and gave them to my friend to read. He put them in the back of his car and forgot about them. It was getting close to the beginning of the school year of 2002-2003, when a couple of friends and I were going to Tulsa to the center of the universe (a place right by the William’s Center, the tallest building in Tulsa). We were driving the back roads there when I just happen to look over at an oil tank and saw the number 222. I looked over the other way, it seemed like I went right to them, and there were the stories that I gave my friend. I started reading one in particular, and on it was a story of a man who kept seeing that number and said it was a way of God talking to him. I kept reading and he talked about asking God for wisdom like Solomon did. I prayed a prayer that he had written in his story, and I asked God just like Solomon to give me wisdom other than anything else. When I was through I asked God to give me a sign. Just looking at the sky I knew God heard my prayer. When we got to the William’s Center we parked in front. Right up front was a motorcycle parked in the lot. I thought it was weird for some reason, and I found out why when I looked at the license plate. There it was plain as day the number 222 the only three numbers on the license plate. I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. I knew now that God was the one doing the talking. This made me look at what was happening in a whole new light. Life went on and the number kept on showing its face everywhere.

 

When 2003 came around I got a job at a restaurant called Red’s Hamburgers. There was a lady there that I became good friends with. Well one day I started telling her the story of the number222, and she believed what I was telling her. I was showing her the 365 day Bible that I found that in. I started reading the chapters for the day 222 and I noticed two things. There first was that the first passage in the chapter was the one were Solomon asks for wisdom. This blew my mind. I could not believe I missed it the first time. The second thing I noticed when I was showing her this was that the date for the 222 day was August 1O. I looked back and remembered when I went to Tulsa with my friends, and it was right before we went back to school. Well our school starts for the year anywhere from the first week of august to about the twentieth. I do not know if it was that day, but if I went back into time I bet it would have been. All in all, after telling the story to someone else I discovered something else that was very significant.

 

Time goes on, and I am kind of use to the things that are happening. In the year2004 I got arrested for some of the trouble that I caused in town. I just turned twenty years old on the first of September in the year 2004. Twenty-six days later I got arrested. I went to jail and got a five year sentence. I went to the Department of Corrections processing center, which they call A&R on the 18, of January in 2005. February 22, I was sent to the yard. That day is 02-22-05. About six months later I got shipped to lower security prison. The date was August lOth, day 222. This did not seem to bother me that much. I am kind of use to things like this happening. Well in the beginning of the year 2006 I got a write up for having cigarettes. They gave me twenty days in SHU, which is a jail inside a jail. They came and got me on February 2nd, and locked me up. I was supposed to spend twenty days in there and get out on the 22nd, but they let me out a day early.

 

This last year, the year 2007, I do not remember anything happening to me in February, but it is only the 7th of November. I still got the 22nd of December to go, which will be 12-22-07. This is the story of my experience of some weird times in my life. I still do not know what it all means, but I believe it is God who is doing it. I do know that it really happen, and is probably going to keep happening in the future. Someday I will find out what it is about. Until then I am going to sit back and ride with it.

 

God bless you all!!!

 

 

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