Truth About Fortune

When I was a child my mother used to say:  “if you can’t say anything nice, better to say nothing at all” (or some variation of that). It seems, dear readers, that mamma knew exactly what she was talking about…. And I’d like to finish this opening with a shout out of thanks to the universe for knowing precisely when to shut its yap.

Let’s examine the evidence….

The last few months have been marked by a dizzying set of concentric circles of Murphy’s Law hell … you know, the old “anything that can go wrong, will?” Yeah, that. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say you really do not want to know the details. Instead just imagine a short time period full of family deaths, coworkers laid off, broken cars, family drama, computer viruses, sick animals and the flu … and you’ve got a partial sketch.

About a week ago a sweet friend on a mission to cheer me up procured my favorite Chinese food from a particularly divine restaurant. As we licked our chopsticks at the end of a delightful meal, she held aloft the delivery box and said “why don’t you take the first fortune cookie?”

I cracked it open, silently hoping the little vanilla-flavored messenger would bring me a little relief.

The cookie was empty.

“Well, that’s appropriate,” I said holding the empty shell up for my friend to see.

“Here, take mine,” she replied and handed me her unopened cookie.

I was tempted to refuse, thinking it was risky to push my luck, but she looked so upset I couldn’t say no.

It should be noted here that according to what I could find via a quick Internet search, an empty fortune cookie means one of the following two things:

  • You make your own fortune so stop looking inside cookies for wisdom, you dummy.
  • You’re screwed.

I think we all know which one I’ll be going with.

Anyway ….

I cracked open the second cookie and burst into laughter.

“I can’t read this,” my friend said when I handed it to her. “I don’t speak Spanish.”

Fortunately (catch that?), I do.

The second cookie was kind enough to tell me I would soon earn a lot of money.

I’ve given the fortune cookie incident quite a bit of thought over the last few days… and I think I have deciphered the universe’s difficult message.  And I am going to say, in all honesty and no joke intended, that this does indeed make me a fortunate person.

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