8.12.07

You Have a Beautiful Singing Voice...


That is not a fortune. It does not make a prediction about my future. Yet, that is what what my fortune cookie told me this evening after dinner. The kids and I made Chinese food tonight and I picked up a bag of fortune cookies at the grocery this morning as motivation toward eating all the veggies I intended to stick in the stir fry - for the kids, not me. I eat my vegetables. The bag of 12 cookies was devoured pretty quickly after dinner and all the "fortunes" were read and the three of us agreed that none of the statements on the scraps of paper were fortunes. None of us were told we'd meet a dark stranger, acquire an enormous fortune, or solve world hunger. Instead, we were given advice or compliments.

The oldest and I started discussing reasons why the fortune cookies don't actually contain fortunes. His ideas ranged from the company's fear of getting sued for their prediction not coming true to an issue with translation. Perhaps the direct translation for fortune in Chinese isn't the same as what it means in English. The fact that fortune cookies are an America innovation leads me to think that this might not be the case, however.

Personally, I think the giant gourmet cookies are a better idea.

2 comments:

PHSChemGuy said...

This has been my major and significant beef with fortune cookies for decades now - the utter and total lack of fortunes.

Fortuneless cookies suck...

calencoriel said...

The "You Have a Beautiful Singing Voice" was as far away from a fortune as I have ever received. I couldn't ignore it...more people had to know of this travesty...

...especially b/c I don't have a beautiful singing voice. I enjoy singing, my children enjoy my singing - but that's pretty much the end of the audience.