Published May 23, 2004 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
If you’re like me, and I know I am, you enjoy a fine meal of Chinese food.
One of the best parts … OK, one of the parts of eating Chinese food is the fortune cookie you get after the main course. A fortune cookie is a unique baked good, in that all the energy expended in its production is focused not on flavor or nutritional value, but on inserting vague prophecies into the cookie. The resulting product could be used as special long-lasting gravel on rural roads.
That’s OK, because no one gets fortune cookies for the cookie, they get them for the fortune.
The idea behind the fortune cookie is that the person who opens the cookie is destined to live out the statement printed on the small slip of paper on the inside. Sometimes this is a prediction, such as, “Your wisdom will come in handy tomorrow.” Other times it is a philosophical life statement, like, “It’s better to be the hammer than the nail.”
I don’t know who writes fortune cookies. It’s possible that they’ve all been written already and redistributed for the past 50 years. I like to think there’s a boardroom somewhere where fast-talking Madison Avenue types crank out cookie material. Sometimes I wonder if politicians tap into the same writers for their media responses. If that’s true, the next presidential debate could be done via cookie volleys.
BUSH: (opens red cookie) “The world is safer when people who don’t love freedom are brought to justice.”
KERRY: (opens blue cookie) “War! HOO! HyyAA! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again, y’all!”
(Note: Author acknowledges that fortune cookies do not generally use quotes from Motown songs, but stresses that they probably should).
Yes, it’s pretty easy to dismiss what you read in your fortune cookie. Even if most of the fortunes came true, you probably wouldn’t even know it. This all came crashing down for me a few weeks ago, though.
After a lovely Asian meal, my wife and her parents cracked open our fortune cookies.
The fortune in my cookie read, “A bad decision could cost you dearly in coming days.”
Yikes! That’s pretty ominous – and strangely more specific than most cookie fortunes.
Then Christina opened her cookie: “You simplify your life in many ways and find great rewards.” She looked at me and said, jokingly (I think), “Sounds like we should put some more life insurance on you.”
HA! HA! HA! Funny! I’ve got two consecutive cookies that give the impression of my impending doom. I grabbed another cookie for a second opinion: “Everyone around you is rooting for you. Don’t give up!”
Oh, now these cookies are just messing with my head. Something I do in the next few days is going to be really bad for me, simplify Christina’s life, and after it’s all done they’ll all talk about my “can-do” attitude.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. I got these fortunes almost a month ago now, and I’m still here. It’s quite possible that the messages we read in our Chinese fortunes are, in fact, the frustrated ranting of undesirable cookies.
Hold on while I set this large, heavy object on top of this flimsy bookshelf. Yes, that looks perfect. Oh, look! My shoe is untied! Better take care of that, while removing my eyes from the large heavy object on top of the flimsy bookshelf.
Like I was saying, there’s nothing to worry …
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.