Take a Number
You're in a waiting room with one of those "Take a Number" devices. You take your number, sit down, look at it... and find that it's something ridiculous, at least four digits long. Just then, an announcement: "Now Serving, Number Three."
This can end in one of two ways:
- You fidget and fuss until every single number before yours is called, and when your number is about to be called... the place closes for the day.
- Hilarity Ensues as you scramble to beg, borrow or steal a lower number.
A common variation or part of this gag is there being a bureaucratic number-system at all at that place (for example, in heaven).
Examples of Take a Number include:
Comic Books
- An issue of Excalibur has Kitty Pryde getting 10^23 from the dispenser—which is probably a reference to Avogadro's Number.
Films -- Live-Action
- Beetlejuice
- At the end, the eponymous ghost gets a six- or seven-digit number... and is sitting next to the voodoo priest with the next number to be called (4). Betelgeuse tricks him and steals the voodoo priest's number... but gets his head shrunk a moment later.
- Earlier in the movie, a ghost couple get a similarly long number. It's then revealed that they had to spend three months in the waiting room.
Live-Action TV
- Mr. Bean has done the second variant. It was well executed, but pretty much as expected. It basically writes the book on this trope, as Bean explores virtually every possible method to cut his wait short, no matter how cruel. This includes ripping a stuffed animal out of a child's arms to get her out of the line, switching tickets with a woman in a full-body cast which also covers her mouth, drawing a zero on the end of someone else's number, and flipping the digital number readout sign upside down so that 6s appeared to be 9s and so forth. He gets his comeuppance in the end, so despite being one of his cruelest outings ever, it's still all in good fun.
- Chuck: In "Chuck Versus the Imported Hard Salami", Chuck goes to Lou's deli in hope of making up with her. When his number comes up, she tells him that if he's not ordering food he'll have to take another number and wait. Finally, his number comes up at closing time... but he manages to make up with her anyway.
- In the Lost episode "The Lie", Ben arrives at an empty butcher shop, not intending to buy anything, and takes a number. This number (342) has thus been heavily scrutinized by fans.
- Oliver runs into this a couple of times on Green Acres. He draws a high number, while the by-the-book clerk is still in the single digits, and insists on systematically calling every intervening number, even though Oliver is the only customer in the room.
- In Supernatural, after assuming command of the place the demon Crowley turned Hell into a seemingly endless waiting line where the new arrivals quite literally have to pick a number from the adjacent machine and wait their turn. When they reach the front however, they go right back to the beginning.
Music
- A song by The Killers advises to "take a number where the blood's just barely dry..."
Puppet Shows
- Naturally, Sesame Street does this with Grover and Mr. Johnson, one of the Fat Blue characters. Mr. Johnson, holding number 40, has to wait while bakery clerk Grover calls numbers 1 through 38 for non-existent clientele. Of course, at number 39, a woman shows up with an extremely long and complicated list which Grover proceeds to fill, leaving the hapless Mr. Johnson screaming in frustration.
Video Games
- Played with in the point-and-click adventure game Space Quest 6. You take a number and get 3, however the current number being served is 4, and it counts up from there of course.
- World of Warcraft: The first encounter with Nexus-Prince Haramad has him telling you that "If you are here to kill me, please take a number and wait for your turn."
Web Comics
- The Heterodyne Castle in Girl Genius has a (pink) psychological torture room that include a number system... but the machine for the victims is out of numbers. Othar doesn't take it well.
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- In her webcomic, Flare imagines burglars doing this [dead link] after she reads that a house is robbed every 15 seconds.
Western Animation
- Happens to Garfield in an episode of Garfield and Friends, while waiting to get yogurt at a frozen yogurt stand. Despite the fact that he was the only customer there.
- Spoofed in an episode of ReBoot. Bob needs to get "slow food" from Al's Wait-And-Eat, and is told to take a number. Bob's number is "1000000000000", but since it's in binary, Bob remarks, "4096? Must be the lunch rush..." Still, Al's waiter calls out, "Now serving number 3..."
- In the South Park episode when the town loses all Internet service, Stan, his sister and his dad have to take numbers to get rationed Web access at a refugee camp. Features both versions of the trope: the fighting and the closing.
- Happens in SpongeBob SquarePants. After many issues with trying to get a bus out of Rock Bottom, SpongeBob goes to ask for a schedule. However, there's a huge line, and SpongeBob has to wait all the way in the back. The person ahead of him, uh, lays on egg on top of his head stating his number in line. As soon as the line moves up one person, the egg hatches, and three more people jump in front of him waiting in line.
- Wakfu season 1 episode 4: In the flashback showing the backstory of the Ugly Princesses, there is such a long line of princes waiting to woo them that they use a "Take a Number" device. Then comes the god Osamodas, who picks number 666 before laying a curse on the disrespectful princesses.
Real Life
- Somewhat of a Discredited Trope in real life. Most take-a-number machines go to 99 and then return to 00. Usually the wait is no more than 10–15 minutes, but there are certainly exceptions.