In my misspent youth, I as soon as labored a summer season job as a waiter at Shoney’s. It’s an expertise that I don’t suggest. Nevertheless it did educate me two worthwhile issues: 1) How to not drown in a puddle of my very own embarrassment when marching across the eating room with my fellow servers and singing a birthday tune that started, “Blissful, joyful birthday, we’re so glad you got here”; and a couple of) That when the surly line cooks ran out of rooster fried steak, they might shout “86 the rooster fried steak!” via the move.
To “86” one thing, in restaurant slang, is to say that it’s out, completed, gone, via, not on the menu anymore. That is the one sense during which I’ve heard the time period utilized in my complete life.
However in accordance with Wikipedia, which naturally has an entry concerning the time period, two additional meanings do exist. “86” may also be utilized to folks a restaurant refuses to serve, and a few slang dictionaries say it will possibly consult with homicide.
Which brings us to former FBI director James Comey, Instagram, and an image of seashells.
86 the shells!
In 2025, Comey posted to Instagram a picture of shells organized within the form of two numbers: “86 47.”
James Comey’s seashell put up.
James Comey’s seashell put up.
Trump, our forty seventh President, has lengthy harbored a grudge towards Comey, going again to Comey’s investigation of Trump’s attainable Russian ties. Trump famously fired Comey in 2017—then, for good measure, fired his prosecutor daughter in 2025.
Trump has been clear for years about his want to make use of the facility of the federal authorities to make life tougher for Comey, and federal officers in his second time period have been prepared to conform.
Thankfully, they’ve additionally been fairly silly. By way of a sequence of staggeringly incompetent actions, the administration already had its first Comey indictment tossed out in Virginia—a loss so epic that it acquired Trump’s interim US lawyer for Virginia booted, too.
