Friday, June 22, 2007

"Fortune Cookies"




I'm a little bewildered by how an idea as bad as fortune cookies seems to never a) go away entirely, or at the very least b) evolve into something better.

Other than being sugary, and as such somewhat resembling dessert since they come at the end of the meal, they are lame in every way. They're not good to eat by any means. It's clear that the inventor's goal was to come up with the very simplest combination of "able to house a piece of paper" and "edible". That stale stick of gum that comes in a package of Topps baseball cards is like a bacon-wrapped fillet mignon in comparison.

And there's nothing fortune about what you'll find printed on the paper. A fortune implies some kind of prediction of the future. Instead you'll find phrases like "You are not illiterate." (Statement Cookie), or "You will obtain your goal if you maintain your course." (Conditional Cookie), or "Don't worry about money. The best things in life are free." (Advice Cookie).

I guess I would argue that "Fortune Cookie" is a misnomer in the very strongest sense of the word. These certainly are not cookies and they ain't tellin' any fortunes.

The concept of the f-cookie could, however, be salvaged. And I am here to tell you how. :) The no-brainer step 1, of course, is come up with a real cookie. A REAL cookie. Not some khaki-colored physics model of a 4 dimensional object. Pecan Sandies are good. I've been known to enjoy an E.L. Fudge on occasion. Oooh, I know! How about one a them Granny B mega-cookies with the delightfully thick and frothy pink frosting. Any of those would work. Lots of choices.

Step 2, mix in some bona fide fortunes. No more statements, advice, etc. Scrap all that boring, non-fortune crap. Now, I realize that the word fortune sort of implies good and beneficial. But it doesn't have to. And this is key. If all the fortunes that people got with their cookies were good fortunes then this idea wouldn't be much better than the current state of affairs. "Everyone's a winner." "I'm okay, you're okay." "Everyone gets a good fortune in their cookie." These mind-numbing PC crap notions are eating us from within. What needs to happen is they need to mix in some bad fortunes. Oh yeah. There needs to be winners, and there needs to be losers. It's human nature. Something like "An IRS agent will notice you used Arthur Andersen" or "That tumor in your head will metastasize within the week." You see how that works? Think about how much more meaning the good fortunes will have given the possibility of receiving bad ones.

Slap one of those into, say, a big gnarly white cholcolate macademia...now you've got a real fortune cookie. :)

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