My Chinese establishment of choice did it to me again… and again… and again. They raped me… of a real fortune. They, or their fortune cookie contractor, didn’t stick a precognition in my cookie. Luckily this time I forfeited delivery service in favor of personally picking up my Broccoli and Chicken to guarantee procurement of an actual prognostication.
Befuddlement flashed across the cashier’s face as my thick fingertips labored to navigate the tiny knots in the plastic take out bag. After a few minutes I managed to crack open dessert and unlock their first forecasting gem:
NOT a fortune. It’s a statement, and a highly subjective one at that. And it’s partially, if not entirely, in the wrong tense. Fortunes need to be in future or present tense followed by a prediction in future tense based on the statement in the present tense. This non-fortune could have been turned into a fortune if the fortune cookie writer had added a prediction of some impressive future feat based on the subjective appreciation of my sense of humor.
But they didn’t, so I demanded another cookie. More befuddlement was followed by cookie relinquishment and this:
STATEMENT. Again. WRONG tense. Again. My eyes already magnetized the secret admirer. What now? Is she a babe? Is she a stalker? Should I be looking over my shoulder and cocking my pistol? Help a single brother out with more conclusive intel, Mr. Fortune Cookieman.
But he didn’t, so I demanded another cookie. At this point befuddlement had turned into full blown apathy and eventually this beauty:
LAME… and incredibly self aggrandizing if the biggest decision I made all day was what to eat for dinner. Technically it qualifies as a fortune because it’s written in future tense, but since I received it at the end of the day it’s based almost entirely on past events. If I had ordered Chinese for breakfast I would have accepted it.
But I didn’t, and another cookie, with the following fortune, was placed in my hand before I could demand it:
Sweet… though my project would probably gain more momentum if I hadn’t just lost thirty minutes picking up Chinese food and fighting for fortune cookies with fortunes from a befuddled, and eventually apathetic cashier.
MichaelFred.Com 