Cookies of Fate

I am not a superstitious person. Black cats don't scare me. I spill salt like its nobodies business. I even broke a mirror this year and laughed about it (I am working my way through all the bad luck omens). Then came the buxing (boo-shing). For those of you who do not know what the buxing is, I direct you to this wonderfully cheesy show called California Dreams. Think Saved By The Bell with Zak Attack, only much better diversity in their casting. Here is the episode I am talking about, with their "kick ass" intro:

I know what you're thinking. "The acting was so amazing. How did none of you become famous?"

For those of you who avoided the episode because 1995 was not a good year for TV or fashion (were Blossom hats really that cool?), allow me to explain. Sam (the one that looks like Desi) gets a batch of fortune cookies from her Uncle that is known for his accurate fortune. Tony's fortune cookie is empty, which Sam calls it the buxing, chinese for misfortune and an "empty cookie means empty fortune." This results in a tidal wave of bad luck for Tony.

A few weeks ago, I got my third buxing within the span of a year. Normally I do not take advice from such an "inspiring" piece of television. I reserve those rights to masterpieces like Buffy and How I Met Your Mother (you're welcome, Rod). But something made me come back to this show I had not seen in 17 years. Was it because I thought I was going to be cursed with bad luck? No. It was more because I wanted to see who remembered that show so I wasn't he who stands alone. But that's not why I don't believe in bad luck fortune cookies.

I have a system with fortune cookies. Whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant with a group of people, I am the one who always takes the last cookie. Why am I OCD about my cookie selection? My reasoning is three fold. 1.) Everyone else will pull that one lame on in the pile. 2.) If I do get a lame fortune, I can blame the asshole in front of me for choosing mine. And 3.) If there is such a thing as fate, I am going to make it work its ass off.

I'm sorry. As a Christian (some people just dropped their jaws in the reading of that) I don't believe in fate. And who would? Have you seen the fortune cookies today? They are a joke. The odds of one of these things coming true are lower then me learning Chinese from reading the opposite side of the paper or winning the lottery by playing those "lucky numbers." For starters, the messages that they tote are rarely accurate. Example: One night, my fortune said "I'm a nice and generous person" the problem is that I am rarely the one who pays for my meal, so when Jason (the person who usually pays for all food when we go out in a group) sees this, he gets pissed. His fortune cookies usually say something like "Your husband is amazing and if you leave him you are fucked". Accurate would be:

Also, making your fortunes sound like Yoda wrote them, does not make them accurate. Sure they are great for a laugh. And I appreciate the force as much as the next man. But my cookies should spout of things like:

Or when the say something rhetorical that leaves you in a state of confusion:

What am I suppose to do with this? Apply it to some life lesson? I asked for the Beef Broccoli, not for some cookie to tell me how to live my life. And what do you know about living? Your soul purpose is to sit in a box with thousands of others just like you until some asshole comes along and breaks you apart and rip out your insides. The fortunate ones get put out of their misery and eaten. Others are drowned in the left over sweet and sour sauce, living out their unfulfilled days in a trash bag.

Okay, that was kind of dark.

Two weeks ago I got one from the local Chinese food restaurant that said: "Go shopping." That was it. WTF is that? That's not a damn fortune! That's not even advice. It was still better then the one that told me to "Go Fly a Kite." Who flies kites anymore? This is not the last scene of Mary Poppins where everyone is happy and singing while flying kites. We have the internet now to amuse use. String and a piece of fabric was low tech in the 80s. Now a days people look at kites like the caveman and his wheel.

Then there are those ones that try and fuck with you:

I'm pretty sure it just called me a dumb ass. I don't eat at that restaurant anymore. If you're going to call me a dumb ass, just say it. Don't try and hide in some flashy poetry wrapped in a cookie. This is not the DaVinci Code. I am not that invested. The least it could have done was told me I'm pretty. I'm not the asshole who went to a sushi restaurant and got upset when they didn't give me a fortune cookie. That was Wayne. He didn't know that sushi is Japanese. See folks. That's a "You're pretty" moment. If you do something like that, you deserve for me to call you that. But I digress.

The last fortune cookie I got was pretty disappointing. It said "You will be singled out for promotion." If I wanted to have people make inaccurate guesses about me, I'd call one of those damn psychic hot lines and talk to Diane Warwick. It's cruel to provide false hope. I don't need pastries getting my hopes up and then smashing them back down, that is what Catholicism is for.

So there you have it. Who could believe in a buxing, when all this other bullshit is feed to me on consistent basis. There is no misfortune in a faulty fortune cookie machine. If a Chinese food restaurant really wanted to impress me, they would have fortune cookies like these:

  I like it when my food is a sarcastic prick like me. It makes dinning that more enjoyable.