Last week we went out for Chinese food and at the end of the meal we got our fortune cookies, which are actually kind of awful in a way, tasting a bit like crunchy sweet cardboard. But never mind that, when I cracked my cookie open I found not one, not two, not three, but FOUR fortunes. It was a fortunecopia, a fortunepalooza, a veritable windfall of fortune.
I figured getting four fortunes for the price of one must mean something so here is my attempt to interpret the deeper meaning of these four cookie-encased slips of paper:
Do not dwell on differences with a loved one – try to compromise.
Okay, I got nothing for this one, it sounds like something from a Dear Abby advice column. Don’t dwell on differences? Compromise? These are not exactly bold ideas.
Your fondest dream will come true within this year.
Does this mean a literal dream, the kind I have when I’m sleeping? I have some nice dreams on occasion but they also tend to bend reality in ways I’m not sure I’d like to actually see happen, so instead I interpret this as “You will win big bucks in the lottery” because…wait, no, that’s not a fond dream. I mean, it fits, with fortune cookie and all but I prefer to think it’s referring to something more fulfilling than a giant pile of money to swim in.
Therefore it must be predicting that I will publish something “within this year” to critical and/or financial success. And by “within the year” must mean the next 12 months because the odds of me publishing something before the end of 2013 in the next two months and change are…well, let’s look at the next fortune….
Do something unusual tomorrow.
Publishing something tomorrow would qualify as unusual, perhaps over-qualify. Since tomorrow has come and gone in relation to getting the fortune I guess I already did something unusual that was also dull, since I can’t recall anything that qualifies. On the other hand, maybe it ties in with the next fortune:
Try a new hat for a change in looks. Be creative!
This isn’t a fortune so much as an imperative to shake things up a little. I normally wear a ball cap most days and sometimes a small toque in the winter, as befits my Canadian heritage. I recently joked about wearing a tam (a Scottish cap similar to a beret but perhaps less [or more?] fancied by hipsters). If I wanted to be really creative I’d probably go full Carmen Miranda and wear a giant headdress of fruit. Or a fedora, as I’d look equally ridiculous with either atop my head.
Okay, so I’m going to wear a silly new hat, publish my writing and be reasonable with my partner. As fortunes go, it could be worse.
