Thursday, May 27, 2004

Fortune Cookies

Answer: You mean like pizza, croissant, quesadilla and strudel fortune cookies?  Question:  Should every kind of ethnic restaurant serve fortune cookies?

One of the perks of working on a movie or commercial set is the food. 

Today, however, was a notable exception.  Instead of the usual catered lunch, including cloth napkins, real plates, real silverware and food prepared by a chef or reasonable facsimile, somebody ordered from a takeout joint.

The table looked like the morning after the night before in a fraternity house. 

Styrofoam plates, little plastic forks, fourteen different boxes and plastic containers of various sizes filled with Chinese carryout food were spread haphazardly across a work table covered in white butcher paper. 

It reminded Mrs. Linklater of her own delicious cooking. Lukewarm and entirely disposable. But plenty of it.  Chop suey. Egg Rolls, Spicy Chicken. Spicy Beef. Buckets of rice to put it on.

And that's not all.

Chinese takeout would not be complete without a fortune cookie for everyone and all their recent ancestors. So Mrs. Linklater took not one, but two of the almond flavored, clam-shaped confections.

She cracked open the first one which said, "Your enthusiasm inspires people." H-m-m-m. Guess that means we can look for Mrs. Linklater to give the next state of the union address. 

The second one said, "No challenge is too big for you."  Odd, since Mrs. Linklater has been overwhelmed numerous times when she discovers that the toilet paper roll is emtpy.

The fortunes sounded like kindergarten platitudes. What happened to the good old days when the fortune in fortune cookies was closer to the truth?  When they had a little edge.  A little piss.  A little vinegar. 

"Your extra effort will go nowhere and you shall remain unrewarded."

Or "Your pet cat will endure great suffering before a lingering death." 

Those were Mrs. Linklater's kinda fortunes. The ones that smacked of downhome, homespun unpleasant truths.

"This day, which you may think is one of luck, is not."

They were seldom uplifting and always read like they had been badly translated from the original Chinese.

Of course, that was before someone sued, yes sued, for getting a bad fortune in their fortune cookie.

And ever since those little kernels of truth have been bland as vanilla yogurt. With nary a nattering nabob of negativity.

Too bad.

 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So true!  I was just thinking the same thing after munching down a fortune cookie recently.. they HAVE changed the messages within!  What's up with that?  Are the bakers concerned about political correctness, being sued or did they fire their writers and are now sponging from Hallmark cards?  ¤Holly