It doesn’t matter because we’re eating Chinese food.

Nothing irks me quite the way getting a bum Chinese fortune cookie does.

And I love me a good Chinese fortune cookie. I live for them; I just don’t eat them – in case they come true. The only reason I frequent any Chinese buffet, though, even the one in Dekalb, is for the sole purpose of receiving, $9.00 later, that little baked, folded, American invention we call the Chinese fortune cookie.

I guess there’s a little of Ya Ya in me, after all.

Because of her, I reserve a small portion of my spirituality for the sake of superstition. It’s fun. And she taught me that anything worth doing might as well be fun or lead up to it. Let me give you an example: I must have been nine or ten, and I was sweetly feeding the squirrels and birds in the front yard, down at Fish Camp, when out of the clear, blame blue swooped a hawk. It flew straight down and killed a redbird that was calmly eating, right in front of my face.

I stood, transfixed. Trying to scream, my mouth wide open, but nothing was coming out. Ya Ya had actually seen the whole thing from the garden, and came running to me, arms stretched out. She carefully explained how Things Work, and we cleaned up the mess and made a fan with the remaining feathers.

Of course, I never get anything worth anything from a fortune cookie.

They’re never really useful or inspired, it seems. Usually, they’re throw-away advice only, or trendy refrigerator art, like my macaroni Ark of the Covenant that I made for U.L. in Vacation Bible School, in second grade.

Rarely, do I get a fortune cookie with something I can walk away with. Yes, yes, a few times, I’ve gotten the old, ubiquitous standby, “You’ll be surrounded by great wealth.”

But, that hasn’t happened yet…unless you count that time I met Michael Eisner, when I worked for Disney. But, his knees were bent by dollars earned from my hard work…which rubs a little of the shine off, for me.

Mostly I get stupid ones, funny but not encouraging, not uplifting.

What I long for is the day I get a fortune like, “Beware the man two booths over. He’s wanted for identity theft in eight states,” OR, “This date is a loser. He lives at home and is allergic to squash. Get out.  Now.”

 I mean, those are good fortunes. That’s what I’m looking for. Something that would or could make a difference in my life, such as maintaining my own identity and finding someone who will appreciate a good squash casserole. A lot of the world’s problems would be resolved if we could just do these two things, I think. I mean, identity is everything, and squash—well, I’m sure I don’t I have to tell you all about the virtues of squash.

After last Thursday, however, I may be inclined to accept the quality of the Chinese fortune cookie based on its entertainment value alone.

And that brings me to Amanda, the case in point.

Amanda and I are known to be Buffet Buddhas. We divide our time between the two good Chinese buffets in town with the devotion of a nervous monk. And when we can’t go because of the weather, we make them come to us. We order in. We wait. We get excited. We polish our own personal sets of chopsticks and make our own hot sauce (well, Amanda does). We settle in on the couch, and again, we wait. We talk about the food, like we’ve never tasted it before. We wonder if they’ll forget the steamed dumplings this time; if they have shrimp toast, still; if it’ll be late, like it always is; if they’ll want to come in and pet the dog, again, just whatever, until the food finally arrives.

Then we lay back, and shoosh the cats and dog out of the way, turn on the TV, and watch whatever’s on. We don’t even care what’s on.

It doesn’t matter because we’re eating Chinese food.

It’s that good. (And I can’t tell you why; I don’t know why). I certainly didn’t grow up eating it. I don’t even like half of what’s on the buffet, but you see, it’s that half of the buffet that I do like that matters.

Last Thursday, though, was a good weather day, and so we decided to go to them, instead. We chose the buffet out towards Wal-Mart, so you know we were committed to have to drive that far.

We took plates and plates of our favorites: the Broccoli Cheese Thing, the Cream Cheese Thing, (NOTE: these are really just my favorites), the Egg Omelet Thing, and so on.

I was in heaven, or wherever Buddha lives, is it Shanghai? I was in heaven or Shanghai. The point is, I was there, and happy to be so.

And then came the fortune cookies, nestled on a little black, plastic tray. I grabbed mine.

I opened it and read: “You’re a good person. Thank you.”

Touching, but obvious.

I eagerly stared at Amanda until she put her fork down (just one little bite of Meat-Wrapped Shrimp Thing left!) and made her open hers.

I’m so glad I did.

Hers said: “You are capable, competent, creative, and careful. Prove it.”

Prove it? I mean, ouch.

Here she’d had such a long day, and now her fortune cookie is yelling at her? I laughed so hard I spit my cookie out. Well, what was left of it.

And every day since then, just to make sure she doesn’t forget, I’ve told her at least thrice a day to do just that. As a matter of fact, no matter what she says to me, or asks of me, or talks about, or references, I merely wait until she’s through and say, very plainly, “Prove it.”

She went on and on Sunday about cleaning the house, the house needed cleaning, etcetera, etcetera, I just stood there and when she finished said, “I agree. Now, prove it.”

I’m just hoping she won’t resort to her fists to do the proving.

Not that I’d blame her.

I never know when things get old. Ooh…wouldn’t that make a good fortune?

“Your joke is getting old. Change it.”

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