Some things just go together. Simon and Garfunkel. Peanut butter and jelly. Chinese food and fortune cookies. But last Friday this beautiful pairing of East meets West was wrenched apart by some sinister hand at Sampan, the take-out place down the street.
After looking down into the dark recesses of the brown paper bag and finding nothing but a few extra napkins and a packet of duck sauce, I started to panic. Where in the hell was I going to get my two-bit wisdom now? What was I going to do with this now superfluous “in bed” on the tip of my tongue? It was quite vexing.
To me, the fortune cookie is one of the main draws of ordering Chinese food. Without it, all you've got is a bunch of mediocre chicken covered in red sauce. Then again, Chinese has never really been my thing. But that's where the fortune cookie comes in. It's the great equalizer. No matter how shitty your food is, you can always count on the fortune cookie to balance things out. Except this time.
For years and years, those little folded messages have given me perspective on my life and relationships. Hell, even my career. They also served as an introductory course in Taoism—from the vague poetic musings of Lao Tzu to the sly military strategies of Sun Tzu. But there's more to a fortune cookie than the message inside. Cracking one open after wolfing down a #12 is part of a tradition—a tradition that someone at Sampan forgot to pass on. Why? I'll never know. But I do know this:
"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."
Yeah, right. I want my cookie, goddamnit.
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