House rules

9 Comments

While I was digging through piles of paper earlier, I kept coming across fortune-cookie fortunes. I once wrote a column about fortune cookies; the below items are probably most of the ones I've saved since writing that column. My criterion for saving a given fortune is simple and sophomoric: is it at least mildly entertaining when followed by ". . . in bed!"?

  • A cheerful message is on its way to you.
  • The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
  • Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure.
  • Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.
  • The time is right to make new friends.
  • With integrity and consistency—your credits are piling up.
  • You are contemplative and analytical by nature.
  • You are soon going to change your present line of work.
  • You are very expressive and positive in words, act, and feeling.
  • Your present plans are going to succeed.

And, finally:

Happy events will take place shortly in your home.

9 Responses to “House rules”

  1. Nao

    My candidate for Most Baffling Fortune Found in Cookie:

    Alas, you are the apple of my eye!

    Really peculiar. It’s still peculiar if you add “in bed”, though a little less so.

    reply

  2. Shmuel

    Mistranslation from the Scottish. It should be “Ah, lass, you are the apple of my eye!”

    🙂

    reply

  3. Jenn Reese

    My favorite is:

    “A thumb is not a finger.”

    Still haven’t figured out the higher message in that one.

    reply

  4. Will Quale

    SWILlie John F once got two fortunes in a single cookie (not unusual in these parts in itself, it should be noted; BDan recently got four though, and that was supremely odd):

    1) A friend only values you for your time, not your money.

    2) Time is money.

    reply

  5. Zak

    I have a slightly different universal rule of comedic effect. Any statement can be rendered extra funny by appending ‘…in my pants.’

    It’s even more sophomoric. Yay!

    reply

  6. Jed

    Yeah, “…in my pants” and “…after the lobotomy” were among the alternate tag lines mentioned in that old column. Somehow they don’t usually strike me as quite as funny, though.

    The “pants” thing also reminds me to mention the other column in which I discussed the Star Wars pants game. As in Vader’s famous line “Your lack of pants disturbs me.”

    reply

  7. Vardibidian

    Great. Now I’ve got Little Miss Communication in my head.

    …and I want to be Herman/and she wants me to be Fred
    and she opens my good fortune/that’s why everything is better in bed.

    reply

  8. Hannah

    I had a string of really good fortunes a few years ago, but the only one I can remember is:

    “Everyone knows that you are the best.”

    I kept that one around for a while.

    reply

  9. naomi_traveller

    “Your lack of pants disturbs me.”

    oh! oh! i had forgotten all about that one…

    (giggling helplessly)

    reply

Join the Conversation

Click here to cancel reply.