Feeling fortunate from cookies

For years, pinned to my bulletin board at work was a fortune I once had inside a fortune cookie.

It read: ‘Something unusual will happen at work next week.’

I recall my reaction at the time. How will I tell the difference from the other unusual things that always happen at work? I figured it was a typo and should have read, ‘Something unusual will happen at work every week.’

I’m not big into horoscopes. I find it hard to believe that my husband and I – his birthday is two days before mine – are to be guided by the exact same advice or proverb day after day.

I remember one time searching up horoscopes on Google. I quickly found no fewer than 15 different ones for that same day. Shouldn’t they all be the same? Or maybe seven were aimed at me and eight at my husband?

Some of the horoscopes were very deep. It exhausted me just to read them. One in particular, however, I found amusing. It said: ‘Try not to let your wallet do your thinking for you today – it’s too easy for you to try to buy your way out of any problems. That’s short-term thinking and it can’t work for you.’

Seeing whereas I only had $5 in my wallet, I had to agree.

Fortune cookies, on the other hand, I like.

I guess it’s the anticipation of cracking into that cookie and seeing what prediction, wisdom or advice is contained inside.

Plus, you get to eat the cookie. On my bulletin board at work, I had another fortune tacked up that read: ‘You can work both alone or with others.’

Well, duh.

I didn’t realize there was a third option.

In my wallet I also used to keep some of my favourite fortunes. Like the one that said: ‘Good things come to those who wait. Be patient.’ I got it one year when we were away at a hockey tournament. I was certain it meant my son’s team was going to win the banner in the championship game.

We didn’t. We won the silver. But the fortune always reminded me of how much fun we had at the tournament so I kept it.

Another favourite fortune was the one that read, ‘A special moment lies ahead.’ Again, this one came during a hockey tournament and again I was sure it referred to a banner.

We didn’t win the banner. Maybe the next fortune cookie should have just spelled it out, ‘You will not win the banner today.’

At one hockey tournament long ago, my youngest was belting out his favourite song over and over – in the locker room, in the car, at the hotel. When we got Chinese food that weekend his fortune cookie read, ‘You have musical talents. Make them known.’

Talk about freaky.

Then there was the time I was on vacation and all of the men in my life – my husband and two sons – were away fishing. My fortune read: ‘Enjoy your own company. If you don’t, who will?’

Seeing where I was all alone I had to admit, it was a good point.

Another time we had Chinese food takeout at home. I wasn’t immediately hungry so I set my combination plate aside for later.

When later came, however, someone else in the house had already eaten it.

When I read one of the fortune cookies it said, ‘Don’t put off until later what you should do now.’

“What does that mean?” my son asked.

“It means eat your supper right away before someone else does,” I said.

A few months ago we had ordered takeout again. When I went to eat the cookie for some bizarre reason when I pulled open the plastic packaging, the cookie went flying across the kitchen, landed on the floor and broke into dozens of pieces.

Oddly enough there was no fortune inside. I didn’t know if that meant I was doomed, but I figured it was just as well.

It was one less thing to pick up.