Andy Young: Blessed with good fortune(s)

By Andy Young

It was two months before I graduated from high school that I first saw the inside of a Chinese restaurant. After the apple barn where I worked had closed for the season, our boss took a bunch of his youthful employees out for dinner as a reward for all our hard work.

I wasn’t accustomed to eating out, and seeing the exotic Asian decor inside an ordinary-looking building was a real eye-opener. It was also somewhat intimidating, particularly since some items on the menu sounded dreadful. I wanted to run for the hills when the boss ordered a Pu Pu Platter.

But an hour later I couldn’t believe I had squandered 18 years of my life before learning of this heavenly variety of cuisine. Everything, from the wonton soup to the egg rolls to the steamed dumplings to the pepper steak to the vegetable lo mein to the pork fried rice to the Egg Foo Young to the Moo Goo Gai Pan, was indescribably delicious.

But the evening’s exclamation point was dessert. I can’t remember what specific fortune was in my cookie that night, but it was probably something generic, like, “A wise person will give you some advice,” “A new friendship brings unexpected joy” or “A smile will change your destiny today.”

I’ve got a theory about fortune cookies. If you have faith or at least believe there’s a possibility your fortune will become reality, well, there is indeed a chance it’ll come to fruition.

Exhibit A for this hypothesis occurred less than a week after I got a fortune that read, “You will share great news with the people you love.” Not long after that I did indeed get some great news, which of course I immediately shared with the people I loved. On another occasion my fortune read, “Don’t be afraid to seek professional help when needed.” That inspired me to call a plumber, and shortly thereafter my leaky faucet had been fixed.

Since realizing that the words inside fortune cookies are potentially life-altering, I’ve been saving every fortune I get, since there is no known statute of limitation on their effectiveness. Some are deeply thought-provoking. Examples include, “Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it” and “Luck sometimes visits a fool, but it never sits down with him.”

Fortune cookies are generally sort of bland-tasting, and even the best ones can’t compare with apple pie, carrot cake, or a simple scoop of vanilla ice cream. However, in spite of their unmemorable taste, fortune cookies should remain popular for the foreseeable future or at least until such time as some innovative baker comes up with some sort of competition. But given the implausibility of fortune ginger snaps, fortune snickerdoodles, or fortune whoopie pies, that probably won’t be happening anytime soon.

Like most people I have certain budget constraints which prevent me from dining out on a regular basis. Fortunately (pun intended) a local grocer sells bags of 20 individually wrapped fortune cookies for a mere dollar, meaning I can semi-regularly treat special friends, family, and on occasion myself to potentially life-changing fortunes at an eminently affordable cost. At that price I can purchase approximately 335 fortune cookies for the same money one take-out order of Moo Shu chicken costs, if and/or when I feel the need to do so.

While the vast majority of my fortune-cookie-related experiences have been positive on occasion I’ll get one that’s infuriating, like the one I got this past Sunday which read, “You will have a life-changing experience in October.”

That’s great. But what am I supposed to do for the next 11 months? <