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FOR THE LONGEST TIME, THERE WERE TWO FORTUNE COOKIES residing in my kitchen. They were refugees from the last time I ate Chinese, and they moved from place to place...from shelf to cupboard, to a bowl on the counter, then into a kitchen drawer. Whenever they got in my way, I'd contemplate tossing them out, and then I'd reconsider. Because, well, who would deliberately throw away a fortune?

Yesterday some mysterious urge led me to finally crack open those little foretellers of fate. Now, a pet peeve of mine is when I open a fortune cookie to find a mere adage within: "Life gets more difficult near the summit,"or "In the eyes of lovers, everything is beautiful." Something like that. Oh, please! If I wanted a truism, I'd just write one for myself: "Life gets more difficult in winter." Or, When there's snow on the ground, the car gets filthy." Or how about: "Great gains can be made by the eating of chocolate."

No! I want destiny described! kismet chronicled! So I opened those cookies with the hope that there'd be news of something terrific about to befall me.

And the first one said...





Sing and rejoice, fortune is smiling on you (with smiley faces--to boost my enthusiasm, I suppose).


Okaaay, that's good, that's good.
I wished for a few specifics, of course, but at least it contained the word you.
Perhaps this message was just to give notice; the next would detail the details.







So I eagerly opened the second.
And lo and behold,
it said:
Sing and rejoice, fortune is smiling on you.



Now I felt just a bit coerced.
I tossed the two fortunes into the trash. I didn't break out in song.






However, this morning when I awakened and the sun was shining, a very strong feeling of great well-being (double-strength, you might say) washed over me. I did a bit of rejoicing.

And it nearly got me singing.



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