Happy Valentine’s Day, You Wrinkled, Pimply Old Lady. Eat Some Glue.

So, you probably thought my most recent post was the last time you would have to hear about fortune cookies.  And now that you’ve read the first sentence of this post, you are rightly assuming that you were wrong.  I know, being right about being wrong is not very encouraging.

I got another fortune cookie today.

Here in the States, we are celebrating another Hallmark Holiday – Valentine’s Day.  When I arrived at school this morning, I checked my mailbox in the faculty lounge, and found a cute little gift box filled with candy.  And a fortune cookie.

As soon as I got to my classroom, I quickly tore open the cookie, eagerly anticipating the antidote to the threatening golf fortune I got from Goldfinger last week.

This is what it said:

“Well, that’s great!” I thought.  “Some day, I’m going to be a partner in a law firm!” (This clearly proves what an optimist I am, as a pessimist – or a realist, since I’m 44 years old, and have never gone to law school – might think, “Some day, I am going to be framed for killing someone who writes provocatively puzzling fortune cookie prognostications, and I will need to hire a law firm.)

But then I found the business card in the box.

So, basically, even if I Live to Die Another Day, I’m pretty sure I’m being told that I will need to get my face dermabraised so I will be fit to be seen in public.   (At least I don’t have diamonds embedded in my face like Zao.)

Forget gun control.  I want fortune cookie control.  You wielders of fortunes have turned the perfectly harmless sport of hunting for the secret to my future into an automated industry churning out emotionally charged weapons disguised as fortune cookies.

But I’m not entirely ungrateful.  Ever the optimist, I found, along with my fortune cookies, some extremely delectable pieces of chocolate.  And a very tasty looking packet of Micro Dermabrasion Paste.

Yum, yum.

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It Turns Out I Had the Right Plot, Just the Wrong James Bond Movie

Well, I’m just not sure exactly how to feel about this latest development in the whole fortune-cookie-threat saga.  The day after I posted my very understandably paranoid post, I received this e-mail,

“My guess is:

The real test in life is not
keeping out of the rough, but
getting out after you are in it.

Love, Dad”

My dad, who has always been a genius with word puzzles, seems to have cracked the less-comminative-than-I-thought cookie code.  And that is somewhat disappointing because his guess makes a lot of sense – and does not encompass nearly as much drama as my own solution to my torn fortune.  I was kind of liking the whole living-on-the-edge-while-I-wait-for-Goldfinger-to-take-me-hostage-and-demand-ransom-from-my-long-suffering-husband -Cap’n Firepants feeling of suspense.  Even though, really, the only part of that which would cause me apprehension would be wondering if Cap’n Firepants would, even for a moment, actually entertain the thought of paying any ransom for my return.

Plus, the obvious allusion to golf in this fortune clearly points to the fact that Fate did screw things up, and I got the fortune meant for my husband (an avid golfer), which means he got my fortune, and neither one of us can remember what that fortune actually said.  So, my future is crumpled up at the bottom of some landfill, and my father, who thinks he did me a favor by solving the mystery, has actually plummeted me into a deeper depression because now my whole world is completely upside-down, what with Fate being about as infallible as the soon-to-be-retired Pope and my future buried under a dirty diaper.

But then I thought…

“Hey, how do I know that e-mail was from my dad?”  I mean, I never actually watched Goldfinger, but surely any respectable James Bond villain could hack into an e-mail account, right?

Oh, and I just Googled Goldfinger, and GUESS WHAT!!!?  (besides the fact that you should never Google anything that includes the word “finger”)  Goldfinger. Loved to. Play. Golf.

And I’m back in business.

I’m pretty sure those same characters are on my fortune. At least some of them. Maybe.  Actually, that doesn’t even look like Chinese…
photo credit: johanoomen via photopin cc

This Fortune that Scared The Living Daylights out of Me is For Your Eyes Only Because You Only Live Twice and I am Probably Going to Die Another Day

I know you think I’m a bit paranoid, but between my Mac jeering at me and my latest experience at a Chinese restaurant, I am beginning to have second thoughts about leaving my bed every morning.  Actually, third thoughts.  I already had been having second thoughts due to the whole I’m-depressed-what-the-heck-do-I-need-to-get-out-of-bed-for-anyway depression thing.

So, my husband, the ever-suffering Cap’n Firepants, and I went to eat Chinese food a couple of nights ago.  Now, everyone knows that the only reason you go to  a Chinese restaurant is to find out what is going to happen next in your life according to the prescient fortune cookie placed before you at the end of the meal.  (I don’t ascribe to either the “in bed” or the “on the toilet” factions who obviously do not give their fortunes the respect they deserve.)

As soon as I took my cookie off the plate, I knew something was wrong.  Through the plastic wrapper, I could see the fortune clearly sticking halfway out of the cookie, and I’m pretty sure that is never a good sign.  When I broke apart the wrapping, and carefully tugged on the fortune, it easily came out.  That is because the half that I was seeing was the only part of the fortune I was going to get.  The rest of my fortune was not inside my cookie.  It was not anywhere. I ONLY GOT HALF A FORTUNE.

Technically, it looks like it’s probably about three quarters of the fortune, but three quarters is kind of long to type, so I took some poetic license and I am saying it’s a half.

“Do you want mine?” Cap’n Firepants generously offered.

“Are you crazy?  I can’t take your fortune!  That’s your fortune!  It’s already foretold.  We can’t switch fortunes now!  Fate is not that foolish!  Fate knows who got which fortune!”

I may have said the above in a slightly high-pitched, somewhat crazed sounding voice that betrayed my confusion and rising panic over the apocalyptic piece of paper I was holding in my hand.

I ignored the wide eyes and raised eyebrows of Cap’n Firepants, and pondered two very important questions:  ONE)  What was my fortune supposed to say?  and Deuce) What horrible events resulted in this torn fortune?

I find the last part of the fortune pretty ominous, “…getting out after you…”  and I’m quite frankly more than a little concerned about the “real test in life” for which I am obviously not going to be prepared BECAUSE SOMEONE. RIPPED. MY FORTUNE. IN HALF.  (I have noted this new phenomenon of placing periods in the middle of one’s sentence to emphasize the importance of what you are saying, and have decided that I am going to freely employ it from now on, as pretty much everything I say is important.)

I am also disturbed about what caused the fortune to be ripped in the first place.  I imagine two factory workers arguing over whether or not this fortune should be sent forth into the world to its destined receiver, and they struggle over it.  In the last seconds before the cookie passes by on the conveyor belt, one worker rips a part off and  tucks the torn end into the cookie, staving the other, desperate worker off until the plastic wrapping phase is complete, and the cookie is dumped into a giant pile of other cookies where there is no hope of ever finding it again.  And then the workers both get eaten by a giant shark.  It’s like some kind of James Bond scene.

And. I don’t. even. like. James Bond movies.

And I am supposed to decipher this half-fortune, so I can somehow pass my “life test” and keep “out of rough things” and avoid people getting out after me and somehow save the world.

This is exactly why I don’t like to get out of bed.  There is way too much pressure.

So here’s the other side of my fortune in case any of you out there want to try to crack the code. I am pretty sure that those symbols do not mean orange. I’m thinking it says “Screw you” even though Google Translate seems to side with “Orange”. They are probably in on the plot, too.