LOS ANGELES - The average gas price in the state of California is now $6.66, according to a report by the LA Times. This has made it tricky for some motorists who keep bursting into flames every time they fill up their gas tanks.
Biblical scholars are reviewing the text of Revelation to see if this correlates with the mark of the beast as described by the apostle John.
"I knew it!" said Horace Oldman, a church pastor who has unsuccessfully predicted the end of the earth five different times. "It's all in the Bible code, friend. You have to not just read what John wrote but really read between the lines too," he said.
"You see, they didn't have gas back then," he continued, "so he described things like a dragon with ten horns and seven heads. That's obviously just talking about oil derricks. Then the beast from the earth are pumps that call fire from the sky. Because fire is something gas can turn into. But since it's evil we're inverting it so it's coming up out of the ground instead of out of the earth."
"DO YOU SEE?"
Horace Oldman predicts the price of gas will top out at $144,000 a gallon.
Theologians at the Claremont Colleges have distanced themselves from this idea.
"It's a coincidence," says Dr. Rabert Heystone, a theologian and political lobbyist for Big Oil. "You can't take one element that fits and mush everything else together. You have this number 666 but you don't have it as a mark, you don't have a moon turning to blood - and never mind the fact much of Revelation is symbolic. You can't pick and choose what is literal and what isn't just to fit your narrative."
Dr. Heystone and his contemporaries, however, have thus far been unable to explain why people keep bursting into flames and becoming unholy supporters of a New World Order.
"I don't know," said Dr. Heystone. "Prices are high. It's stressful."
Citing concerns about stiff competition from Amazon and an impossible-to-please Gen Z, Santa has announced he's hanging up the hat for good.
