Saturday, May 9, 2009

The Fortune Cookie Incident

I had Chinese food for dinner tonight. This was my fortune:

My initial response was to bash the quality control over at the fortune cookie factory. How could they let something like this pass through enough levels of approval to end up on my plate? I finally calmed down and steadily grew fond of the simple elegance of this advice: take what you have learned, and put it to good use. This may kill the romance of future encounters, adventures, and business opportunities, it's just more useful. Perhaps the Chinese food eating public is better off getting more pragmatic messages from their cookies. "Don't eat this cookie," for example. Or maybe, "Don't spend more than you earn." After all, if people can be silly enough to expect satisfaction from their fortune, maybe they'll be silly enough to heed the advice.

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