Wednesday

I have a problem with fortune cookies.

I eat way more Chinese food than I should and as a result I find myself reading a large number of little white pieces of paper that I’ve plucked from the depths of their vaguely vanilla scented folds. Most of the time I forget what I’ve read almost immediately, but today I noticed something that made me recall many of the fortunes I’ve read in the past and something that many of them have in common. No, I didn’t learn the final word that led me to mastery of the Chinese language. (By the way, I am sure that if I had and traveled to China armed with this skill I would have ended up learning Mandarin when I needed to know Cantonese or vice/versa) What I noticed was that these days very few of them are “fortunes”.

Call me a traditionalist, but I want that damned cookie to tell me my destiny.

Not that all non-prognosticatory cookies are bad. I usually enjoy the ones that contain nuggets of “Ancient Chinese Wisdom” (“The axe soon forgets, but the tree always remembers” is one of my favorites) but that is about the limit of my fortuneless cookie love.

From here we enter the realm of the cookies that attempt to do two different things.

1. Give you advice

2. Teach you something about your nature.



Listen, cookie….I am a grown-ass man. I know right from wrong. Quit trying to get up in my grill and tell me what to do.

When I need advice I’ll ask for it and you can be damned sure I won’t be seeking it from a Chinese cookie that’s too freakin’ bland for its own good.

You also need to keep your baseless and inaccurate judgments about my life, work, and family to yourself.

You don’t know me, bitch.

Well, ok…you totally called it that one time you said I love Chinese food, but that’s it….you’re batting like .023 ...big whoop.

Stick to the whole “Opportunity will soon knock. When it does, answer the door!” type thing and we’ll be cool again….in bed.