Back in high school in Pittsburgh, I worked at Eat'n Park, a local diner chain where I picked up a few quirky phrases with numbers that have stuck with me after all these years. At 7:14 p.m., the kitchen crew would say "Happy 714" to each other. I learned that it was a sly reference to marijuana. When a waitress whispered "Table 12," it meant my crazy step-aunt had arrived sitting at her favorite table, 12, and I should stay hidden in the kitchen to avoid her.
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But the most enduring term was "86," as in "Turkey's 86'd" or “Dinner special 86’d, or worse "Strawberry pie's 86'd," signaling we were out of a particular item. When we ran out of our famous strawberry pie, customers became quite agitated.
I thought it was unique to our restaurant until I moved to New York City for acting school and heard the same expression in an Italian restaurant where I worked briefly. I was stunned to hear the same term thrown around like gospel: “86 the veal parm,” someone would shout, and that was that. It was restaurant lingo, passed down like an oral tradition.
So imagine my surprise when the term 86 suddenly made national headlines recently. 86, which innocently meant no more strawberry pie, had been twisted into a paranoid fever dream by Trump World. And somehow, former FBI Director James Comey was at the center of this clown-show ridiculousness which happens to be quite scary.
Comey, now a private citizen, posted an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” Seemed harmless enough. He wasn’t the first to post those numbers. It’s been going around recently, a subtle dig at the 47th president being 86’d. Was it tasteless? Maybe, but not to me, since I know what 86 means. But threatening? Only if you believe that numbers have magical properties.
Truth is, the term 86 dates back to 1930s diner slang, when it was used as staff shorthand, according to language expert Jesse Sheidlower of Columbia University, a former Oxford English Dictionary editor at large. Just as it did at Eat ‘N Park, 86 meant that something was not longer available.
Donald Trump went on Brett Baier’s wild-eyed Fox News show late last week and threw a hissy fit. Comey "knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination," Trump said. Assassination? Something akin to strawberry pie and veal parm? Give me a break!
But Trump and his overzealous and wild conspiracy theorist henchpersons thought otherwise. Kristi Noem, the scandal-plagued Homeland Security secretary, said Comey’s post was a call for Trump’s assassination. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, declared that Comey should be thrown in jail. And Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino went on Fox News and ranted that Comey had “once again brought shame to the FBI” and that “we’re still cleaning up his mess.”
Wait. Still cleaning up his mess? Comey left the FBI in 2017. That's eight years ago. How exactly does a long-departed bureau chief still have his fingerprints on current operations? I think I have a better idea who’s creating the mess. It’s Bongino and the agency’s director, Kash Patel.
You would think that if there were any messes left by Comey, they’d be “86’d” by now.
But let’s not pretend this outrage is about shells or numbers or even Comey. This is part of a years-long vendetta.
Trump has been targeting Comey ever since the former FBI director refused to pledge loyalty and refused to shut down the Russia investigation. Trump fired him in May 2017, then bragged about it to Russian officials. That action, which may have constituted obstruction of justice, helped launch the Mueller investigation.
It didn’t stop there.
Trump’s Justice Department repeatedly targeted Comey for prosecution, even opening leak investigations into him that led nowhere. Trump raged that Comey should be prosecuted, called him a “slimeball,” and fantasized about his imprisonment in tweets and rallies alike. He even pressured the DOJ to investigate Comey over the Steele dossier and Hillary Clinton’s emails, always hunting for a way to delegitimize him.
This recent “86 47” pearl-clutching is just the latest attempt to criminalize Comey’s speech. The idea that an Instagram post with two numbers equals a violent threat is laughable on its face; however, it’s not funny. Rather, it’s dangerous when it leads to the Secret Service interviewing a citizen for what amounts to a snarky post.
Do we really want to live in a country where cryptic jokes or political jabs can get you interrogated by federal agents? Fortunately, Comey took it all in stride.
What happens when it's not Comey but a teacher? A reporter? A teenager with a Twitter handle and a bad attitude?
We’re in dangerous territory when speech is treated as sedition and restaurant slang is redefined by the ruling regime. The overreaction isn’t just absurd, and it’s alarmingly authoritarian.
Let’s remember what “86” really means. It doesn’t mean kill. It doesn’t mean murder. It means we’re out. That’s it.
But Trump, Noem, Gabbard, and Bongino want us to believe that a photo of seashells is a call to arms. And they want to terrify anyone else thinking of criticizing the regime. They want to 86 dissent. To 86 satire. To 86 the First Amendment.
Comey deleted the post and clarified that he “opposes violence in any form.” But the mob didn’t care. Their outrage wasn’t about safety. It was about dominance. About making an example.
And that’s what should scare us. Because if they can do it to Comey, they can do it to you.
So the next time you see someone try to twist everyday language into a federal crime, remember, they’re not confused. They’re calculating. They want the meaning of 86 to change, from "we’re out of strawberry pie" to “you’d better watch your mouth.”
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