Fortune Cookie

I am the only person I know who has had not one but two fortune cookies that were empty on the inside. No fortune. No future? Well, this happened in college, so obviously I have had some kind of a future. But really, how sad is that? Sometimes you open a fortune cookie and you get some proverb that really doesn’t say or mean anything and it’s a total disappointment. (example: "Enough is as good as a feast".) How does this fortune motivate me to live a better life or be a better person? The answer is that it does not. But no fortune at all? What does that mean I should do? Just give up and go home to bed? Actually, it doesn't take much to make me go to bed. Now I have a good excuse!

Sunday night, Mike and I took the girls to Shogun for dinner. We hadn’t been to a Japanese Steakhouse in a while and I thought (mistakenly as it turns out) that the girls would get a kick out of it. So, at the end of the meal, Mike and I were sufficiently stuffed and the girls had hit their time limit on behaving in a public place. The wait staff was passing around fortune cookies which seemed to delight the girls. That is, until they actually tasted the "cookies" and realized that they were not cookies at all but rather flavorless, stale pieces of bread. At any rate, Meg being too young to understand why there was a piece of paper inside her cookie, promptly discarded her fortune onto the floor. Kate, however, was interested and wanted to know what her little slip of paper had to say. I read it to her: A lucky surprise is coming to you in the mail. She got excited thinking that she was about to get some sort of gift, so I tried to distract her by telling her that it was Santa who would be bringing this treasure and she’d have to wait a few more weeks AND would have to be good (since he’s watching and all).

Kate, while very timid and shy with new people or in crowds, is actually a playful little girl. After I read her the fortune tucked inside her cookie, she took it from me and began pretending (or “buhtend” as she says it) to read her fortune. She told me it said, “I Love My Mommy.” She smiled sweetly as she said this. It made my heart melt (well, that and the heat from the still-simmering cook top before us). I then began to envision how this fortune would change in her mind as the years passed. Fast forward 5 years and she’ll say her fortune reads, “I hate my mom”. Fast forward another 5 years and it’ll be, “My mom doesn’t understand me at all.” Fast forward maybe three years and it’ll be tempered somewhat to, “My mom is a total embarrassment” or “Why can’t my mom dress like the other, more attractive mothers?”. Hopefully a few years after that it will be something like, “My mom did the best she knew how to do.” I guess I'll know I've done a good job with her if down the road it reads, “My mom loved me no matter what.”

As things happen to me now, I try to think of a way I can write about it, making it deep and profound for the readers of my blog. I was sitting there in that restaurant, brushing Kate’s bangs to the side of her face with my gentle and loving fingers, looking deep into her eyes – lost in thought as I pondered these future fortunes (again, painting a picture of a profoundly reflective moment in my parenting for the purpose of this story…). I was suddenly bolted back to reality when I realized she was now saying that her fortune said, “Poo Poo Bottom”. So much for my blog-worthy, beautifully crafted moment with my adorable and loving child.

At any rate, my fortune for the evening was something lame like, "Doors will be opening for you" and it was actually a lady at our table who was the recipient of the cookie with no fortune at all. (I still have her beat, though. I had two in one sitting!) When I got home, I found that Kate’s fictitious fortune was correct. Her sister had a dirty diaper (the aforementioned “poo-poo bottom”) that I was lucky enough to get to clean.

The point of this story? There's not one, of course. Much like all of my other posts. Just my wish for you the next time you open a fortune cookie; a quote from Marcus Aurelius, "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking".

Hope you had much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!