Fortune Cookies and the Optimism of Destiny

Fortune cookies are cheerful by nature. Consider their crunch, their smooth surface, their mild sweetness. Note the way they can be snapped into neat halves in one smooth motion.

More importantly, check out the incredibly upbeat messages inside.

For years, every time I had a fortune cookie, I saved the little slips of paper. Now I have a collection of flattering if sometimes conflicting descriptions of myself.

Who doesn’t want to know she is charming, sweet tempered and destined to succeed at whatever she puts her mind to? But none of the fortunes, no matter how varied are negative.

Maybe the people who write the maxims on fortune cookie slips are incurably optimistic. Or maybe they are simply wishful about humanity. A few of them may believe they are changing the world one fortune cookie insert at a time.

And they might be right.

Still, I sometimes wonder what sorts of descriptions and predictions might arrive in my cookies if the writer was having a bad day. You are temperamental and have a tendency toward procrastination, one slip might say. Avoid Gluttony – Start by not eating this cookie, might be another one.

Or how about: The path before you is difficult. Go back to bed.

I’m not quite sure why I keep those little slips. The messages are neither deep nor personally insightful. But somehow I can’t make myself throw them out.

They’re a bit like a smile from a baby in a passing stroller. The smile isn’t personal. The baby doesn’t know you. But still, a baby’s smile has a kind of intrinsic value regardless of what the baby was thinking at the time.

The fortune cookie strips I keep are like this – impersonal but still bearing an odd significance.

Among the pile of paper strips, the one I love most is the one I understand the least.

He is kissing her triding keepsake.

I still wonder what the writer meant by that.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. Wednesday is generally book review day. Unless it isn’t. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.