Thursday, September 8, 2011

Since When Do Fortune Cookies Give Advice?

Tonight, a friend swung by my office and asked if I wanted a bite to eat.  Considering it was dinner time, I said OK.  After a few moments of debating where to eat, we decided to head to the East Side of town for what my friend claimed to be the best Thai food in Milwaukee.

The food indeed was delicious and I was very much impressed.  As the meal came to a close, we were given fortune cookies - which has become almost an expectation when dining in an Americanized Thai or Chinese restaurant.  I know that I personally look forward to the moment where my "dessert" tells me what to expect in the coming days, weeks, or years.  Side Note: I looked it up, and it seems that the history of the fortune cookie in the United States started around the 1890s in San Francisco, which makes total sense due to the large immigrant population coming from Asia.  These cookies were a slight modification to a traditional Japanese cookie.  

So, basically, what I'm trying to say is, the concept of a fortune cookie has been along for quite some time.  And the concept is simple: eat a cookie, read a fortune.  It's really self explanatory in the title.  I don't know if these companies have given up on thinking of fun fortunes to print for their cookies, or maybe they've just become complacent.  My cookie today did not give me a fortune, rather, it told me to consider dressing in a new style.  For those of you that know me well, I love hipsters.  So, I thought, maybe the cookie was hinting that my new style would be hipster-like.  But I consider that to be a slant fortune - not really a fortune, but kinda almost one.  I felt like it was more of an advice giver.  Or maybe a hint I need a new wardrobe - and no, Stacey and Clinton were not at this Thai restaurant to surprise me with $5,000 for a new wardrobe.

What I think would be great is if these cookie companies got really creative with their fortunes... like: "You will find $50 on the street and then can really end your story, 'And then I found $50.'", or "You will buy 7 hamsters in the next week and name them after the characters of Snow White."  Who knows.  The sky's the limit.  Seriously.

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