The oil change of the beast.

An oil-change mechanic at a Walmart in Ft. Worth is in hot water after a customer discovered some graffiti on the underside of her Mustang. The woman claims the graffiti (above) reads “666,” and includes an upside-down cross and pentagram.

(Of course, I’m wondering if it doesn’t have a right-side-up pentagram, a regular cross, and “999.” Maybe he’s a supporter of Herman Cain’s tax plan. Right?)

A worker at another Walmart tipped her off to the writings, pointing out that they were written in the same color blue used by most Walmart oil-change stations. She remembered having a bad encounter last time she’d had her oil changed, at a Walmart in a different part of Ft. Worth. Here’s what she said:

“He had an attitude,” the customer says about the Walmart worker who she believes is responsible for the writing. “Very sassy. By the time it was all said and done, I spent about three hours at that Walmart just for an oil change.”

This all sounds very fishy to me. Was the attitude problem 100% on the mechanic’s side of the situation? That’s really beside the point. Here’s what she said about the writings:

“Who does that? Being the Satanic symbols, it puts a bad omen. I mean, what if it’s a curse?”

It is not a curse. It’s a random assortment of symbols associated with rebellion against Christianity. When you look up Satanic curse on Google, what do you see? A bunch of gossip and hearsay. You don’t see these symbols (and certainly not all put together). You don’t even see any examples of real Satanic curses, because it’s just not that common and it’s not done based on a formula.

This is just like any other vandalism — it’s there to freak you out, to get a rise out of you, and it only works because we have such fearful misconceptions about these symbols.

And it worked. Not only did it frighten this customer, but it’s now all over the Internet.

I’m not saying the Walmart worker should have done this. Of course he shouldn’t have. But this is no different from him writing “fuck you” on the underside of the car. There’s no Satanism, no magic, behind it.

So let’s please just take some deep breaths and move on.