I do believe that today I received my favorite fortune cookie of all time. Before this one, it was, “I am a prisoner in a Chinese cookie factory,” which I did not actually receive myself. I did receive one that said, “Check this website for a substitute fortune.” I thought that it was a big joke, but checked, and sure enough, it was there and I could pick another fortune.
About five years ago I had lunch in a favorite restaurant and no fortune cookie was delivered. I told the waiter, “No cookie. How will I know what to do the rest of the day?” He confided, whispering, “It’s like a little joke. The fortune doesn’t really guide you.” He was serious, so I didn’t tell him I realized that.
It’s a little game we play. We know better, but we like to think that the great Buddha is enlightening us. Follow his advice and our path could change for the better.
Wouldn’t it be something if we could change our luck and ensure the future that easily? When all is better than expected, we may call it fortuitous, a word from the same root as fortune.
There was a pleasant little restaurant here called Bodhi’s, which the menu explained was the original word for Buddha. Unfortunately, the place closed after a year, so the name did not bode well for it.
There’s an expression about what happens that appears on bumper stickers, but I will not repeat it here; it reminds us that all is not sweetness and light, that we have to accept the bad with the good. When too much not so good befalls us, we may decide, “Something’s gotta change. Enough is enough.”
That fortune I got today in my take-out Chinese, my favorite of all time? It said, “Oops…Wrong cookie.”
Byrna Porter Weir was born and grew up in Houlton, where her parents, Ina and Porter, were portrait photographers. She now lives in Rochester, N.Y.
