Money, shame, and pork fried rice

Last Fri­day, Carla and I went out for Chi­nese food. After the meal, I opened a for­tune cookie to reveal the fol­low­ing non-commital, vaguely disappointed-sounding “fortune”:

“You should be able to make money and hold on to it.” It’s like some­thing your Mom tells you when you ask to bor­row 5 bucks until payday…I half expected Carla to open hers and read “You should set­tle down and have a few kids already” or “Why haven’t you cleaned your room yet?”

The smi­ley faces on either end shame me into recall­ing all my unre­al­ized ambitions.

Then again, maybe it’s not sup­posed to call to mind images of promise squan­dered and parental dis­ap­point­ment. Maybe I’m read­ing too much into it. It could be the for­tune cookie equiv­a­lent of a magic 8-ball’s “Reply hazy, try again” set­ting — a cop-out from the Ora­cle of Asian Cusine.

“Well, you should be able to make money, but the Ching Hua Dessert Div­ina­tion Cor­po­ra­tion makes no war­ranty therein…”

If the for­tune cookie isn’t sure of any­thing, how can we be?

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