Six months ago, our family enjoyed a Sunday supper at home of delicious Chinese food from our favourite restaurant. When the meal ended, five fortune cookies were randomly given out to us all and one by one, we went around the table, cracking them open and reading the messages on the tiny papers contained within them.
The ritual started with my son to my left and continued around the table till it was my turn. I cracked open my cookie, to discover there was nothing inside. This led to much hilarity and questions from me about what this could possibly mean. To this day, those questions have gone unanswered.
A few weeks ago, we sat down again to another feast of fried rice, egg rolls, guy ding and chicken balls and the cookie reveal was once again saved till the last. One by one, each of the five family members read out their fortune till it came to me. I cracked open my cookie to find, once again, no fortune within.
How could this happen when the cookies, on both occasions, were distributed at random? Surely, the message-less cookie could have been delivered to someone other than me.
So, I am left to wonder once again at my luck or lack of it. But being an optimistic person who always looks on the bright side of things, I brought out my Last Will and Testament the next day to see if there was a loophole or two that needed fixing. I did notice one or two of my most treasured possessions that I failed to gift to anyone, specifically my favourite baseball cap that looks as though it was recovered from a Kentucky coal mine that had been closed for a hundred years.
But try as I might, I am unable to get past my repeated misfortune. The other members of my family have gone on their merry ways, but I am left in a Chinese stew.
However, I think I do have some explanation now as to how it is, after seven decades of striving, I have managed somehow to avoid accumulating the fortune I always thought I would surely have by now. It was never in the cards for me. Not even in the cookies.
©2023 Jim Hagarty
