I’ve been to a lot of Chinese restaurants in the past few weeks, and I am increasingly disappointed with the fortune cookies. The fortunes are downright stupid. It’s hard to find any that are interesting or entertaining.

I went with some friends to a wedding reception a few weeks ago. There on the snack table were two baskets of fortune cookies, and the cookies in one of the baskets were half-dipped in chocolate. I had about three of these. My friends, however, continued to eat the cookies–chocolatized or not–in search of a decent fortune. None of them were memorable in the least.

This is a national problem.

I went to Idaho this weekend for my Grandpa’s Eightieth birthday party, where we all piled into a Chinese restaurant. Again, the fortunes were lame. Mine said: “You deserve a promotion!” and that’s exactly what my brother’s fortune said as well. So I turned it over and wrote, “The Monkey of Light is next in line for the throne. You are him.” Not great, but an improvement.

The next most common fortune we got at dinner was something like: “You are admired by all because of your good looks and desirable personality.” A fortune should be full of wisdom or speculation, not a statement of fact.

I opened the next fortune cookie. “A letter of great importance may reach you any day now.” I don’t get many letters, and since it calls it a “letter,” I don’t think emails count. I did, however, receive a package today, as the bass amp I ordered came in. But that’s a package, not a letter.

Th only conclusion I could com to is that th fortun was rfrring to th lttr ” ” sinc that is th lttr that is missing from my computr kyboard. I hop that lttr coms soon bcaus it’s making it hard to writ Nthrmor, which is why th progrss bar is not updatd for th wknd.

The best fortune I’ve received this month said, “Write your own story. Don’t let others write it for you.”

I think we need legislation against stupid fortune cookies. There are people out there who have proven that they can write some great fortunes. Or maybe I’m just going to wrong restaurants.

PS. This one was my favorite.