I’m tired of the faulty predictions I’ve been getting lately from Fortune Cookies. Quite simply, they’re wrong—I’m not the woman they perceive me to be. In the last two months I’ve had these wise words bestowed upon me:
Cookie #1: You are not bitter, petty, or dishonest.
Cookie #2: You will soon witness a miracle.
Cookie #3: Your enormous talents will pay off this week.
If I were still a teenager, I might add the words “in bed” to the end of each of these statements, perhaps making them more true than they are on their own. I don’t think I’ve ever been bitter or petty in bed, although being dishonest has gotten me, and gotten me out of, sex. I could speculate for days over the miracles I might see in bed. As for my enormous talents in the boudoir, well.
These so-called fortunes might work for other people who mindlessly eat Kung Pao chicken and sautéed mushrooms, then chomp the cookie thinking, “Oh, how cute,” when they read the litmus-test sized paper. But I don’t mindlessly toss them aside, allowing whatever hostess or busboy who might clean my table to share in my moment of foreshadowing.
No.
I take these slips home and put them in prominent places where I can revisit them again and again—my sock drawer, my wallet, the underside of a can of green beans. I give them the due attention I might a palm reader or mystic psychic. After all, each meal on average costs me about fifteen dollars, a fraction of what I might pay Lady Amiee who reads palms on Main Street.
I ride home from the Hong Kong Buffet staring at the small strip, wracking my brain for what in my life could fit the mold prophesied in the palm of my hand.
I once paid an obese bearded man ten dollars to read my palm. I was on vacation in New Orleans with my boyfriend, and after cruising the booths in front of St. Louis Cathedral I chose this man because his sign read “Fortunes: You Pay what They’re Worth.”
After looking at my left palm the man said, “In a past life you were an agrarian. You worked outdoors.”
Who didn’t?
He asked, “Would you like to know about your love life?”
Sure.
“You will marry your first great love,” he said. “You’ll have two children.”
Hum.
I thanked the fat fortune teller, handed him a ten, and told myself, “You get what you pay for.”
At the time of this reading I was under the impression from two doctors that I could never have children. Also, the boyfriend I was with was my second great love, the first having died several years earlier. So unless this psychic was predicting my death and subsequent supernatural marriage and motherhood, he was off his crystal ball.
I find it ironic that while a Fortune Cookie proclaims my honesty, the tradition of these stone-like desserts comes from a dishonest act. Some fourteenth century Chinese patriots put secret messages inside Moon Cakes to fool Mongol invaders, and eventually, because of these deceptions, formed the Ming Dynasty.
I also find it ironic that while my cookie says I’m not bitter, the actual cookie was first made by an extremely bitter group of people—Chinese 49ers. Near starving, working for slave wages laying track in the Southern Nevadas, they couldn’t make Moon Cakes to celebrate during their annual Moon Festival so they resorted to stuffing pieces of paper into hard biscuits. I’d be pretty bitter if I’d left China in search of a better life, only to find myself nearly heat-stroking with nothing to comfort me but a day-old biscuit.
I’ve been told that after eating a meal in a Chinese restaurant, the diner should not take the Fortune Cookie blindly from the tray on which it’s presented. Supposedly, the Fortune Cookie will choose you by pointing its folded end toward you. Perhaps the reason I’ve been getting these misguided predictions is because the people I’ve been dining with don’t observe this rule.
Worse, they sometimes say, “You want your fortune cookie?”
What are they thinking? That I’d give away my future to them just because we shared Cashew Chicken?
It makes my skin crawl when I enter a Chinese restaurant and the cookies are piled in a glass fish bowl near the exit. Kids pull handfuls as they leave, parents won’t even take one. I refuse to eat in these rip-off joints; I want a meek, short, soft-spoken Asian woman to smile and say, “Here your fortune,” not a buffet of cookies where I can willy-nilly choose my fate.
And I’ve had enough of the copycat cookies in restaurants that aren’t Chinese. At an upscale steakhouse in Los Angeles the waiters don’t bring pillow mints, they bring chocolate-dipped Fortune Cookies. How this gels with prime rib and baked potato I don’t know.
Or the super un-Asian couples who order Fortune Cookies in colors that match the bridesmaid’s gowns at their weddings. Inside there’s no fortune, just a slip of paper that reads, “Brett and Heather 4-10-03.” How is this supposed to shape my future? I write my own predictions on these to make me feel better: “Brett and Heather: Divorced 5-19-07.”
Most of all, I’ve had it with people who expect Fortune Cookies at Japanese restaurants. The only time nearly-tasteless harbingers of my future are appropriate is after I’ve filled my arteries with enough MSG to preserve me well into the next decade.
A friend of mine, Lorraine, would be very good at writing fortunes that would keep people from simply tossing them aside after their Pepper Beef. She fantasizes about scripting evil phrases that might make someone second-guess their entire life. “Your husband is lying to you” is her personal favorite. She also likes, “That rash you have is actually serious” and “You will die soon.” Her three fortunes are believable from any point of view: If you’re a man and you get her first fortune you thank god that your wife is eating the wrong cookie. And really, who doesn’t have a rash? And shouldn’t we all be made aware of our mortality from time to time?
I’m not as creative as Lorraine. The best I can do is, “Your shoes are tacky” and “That thong isn’t doing your butt justice.”
When I showed my husband the “You will soon witness a miracle” cookie I was looking for a second opinion about the notion of miracles.
“Can you believe this?” I said, accusingly.
“What does it say there?” he said, “You will soon witness a murder”? I had no idea my finger was covering the “iracle” in miracle.
“That would be way too interesting,” I said.
I often wonder who writes fortunes for these semi-tasteless cookies. I imagine small, elderly Chinese men and women, sitting cross-legged at low, long metal tables within communist warehouses, coming up with pleasant slogans they think democratic Americans might enjoy. They punch out small letters on tiny typewriters onto paper they hand stamp with Lucky Numbers. I see these same small people meticulously tweezing the strips into the hardened cookies.
I refuse to believe that a metropolitan advertising company in Canada is responsible for telling me that I’m not a liar. Or for accusing me of being capable of witnessing a miracle. How dare a Canadian assume I believe in the miraculous? When it’s a no-God commie, okay. But a Canadian? Come on.
I’m not a religious person, but, alas, I do believe in miracles. They might not be the ones that a small communist fortune-maker might think of—walking on water, stigmata, mother Mary’s face on a potato chip—but I do think there are things in this world that are unexplained. The spine-tingling presence of someone long-dead, unconditional love, giving birth to a healthy child.
Life.
Perhaps it is overly hokey or optimistic, just what my small Chinese fortune workers might want me to admit, but life as I see it is a miracle. Or mystic. Or majestic. Since my palm was read in New Orleans I have married a man who, when he’s dancing to the music in his own head, reminds me of my first great love. We’ve had a child even after doctors told me for years never to expect it to happen. And while my life might not be completely absent of talent outside of the bedroom or pettiness over the fact that I always seem to be given the smallest orders of Orange Chicken at the Hong Kong Buffet, once in a while, when the light hits my life just right, I see what the cookie is talking about. I have witnessed miracles. And if that’s true, fortune, future, it’s simply a matter of perspective.
This was very entertaining to read. Well written and thought provoking. Who knew a fortune cookie could inspire such deep thinking regarding life, in general. The humor was well placed, as it reminded me of what my own thoughts are, when reading a fortune strip from one of these tasty treats. I think this is printing fodder and would do well in a monthly subscription publication.
WOW – I have never read any of your work before now – you so rock. I love your style and wanted more to read. Your sarcasm is endearing…what else is available to read?
Terri
Hi Terri
Thanks for your kind words. You can probably Google me, but for some quick finds you can go to “The Apple Valley Review” and search for me in their archives–they’ve published a trilogy of essays on my neighbors. I short piece called “Rock Star” was published a few years ago online too.
Are you a writer?
Thank you for putting that into words so eloquently. It was pretty funny to read and probably mirrors what the rest of us think.