Christmas Cookie?
Well, with Thanksgiving now officially behind us, and the turkey leftovers now undergoing their 23 permutation to make them seem fun and exciting, and even perhaps palatable, we have now entered the home stretch to the true meat of the holiday season. Er, no pun intended.
How do I know that Christmas is now looming before me? What telltale signs do I rely on to foretell of the annual appearance of Old St. Nick?
Oh, sure, I could fall back on such obvious clues as omnipresent Christmas music, or the explosion of twinkling lights adorning houses. But, no, when it comes to ascertaining the impending arrival of Christmas, I consult fortune cookies.
Yes, you know Christmas has maybe, just maybe, become a tad too commercialized when even the sacred prophecies of Chinese fortune cookies bespeak of your guaranteed holiday bliss.
Although it's still somewhat difficult for me to believe, the fortune cookie that accomodated one of my recent Chinese food purchases actually told me I could expect a happy holiday season. Specifically, it read: "You will have a safe, carefree and fun holiday season."
In retrospect, I guess I should be rather grateful for my good fortune. Woe be it to the gentleman who was served after me who got the foreboding cookie that harbored the message: "Your holiday season will be filled with horror, dread and, eventually, your own ghastly demise."
Given that Christmas is widely considered a very depressing time for a lot of people, I should be pleased that my fortune cookie told me of my impending good cheer. Now I can gleefully walk past panhandlers without giving them a second thought, because, no matter what I do wrong, my Christmas season is set to be chock full of carefree safety and fun.
You know, now that I think about it, what would have happened if my fortune cookie had shifted down to the bottom of the crate and wasn't placed in with a Chinese meal until later in the year, like around Jan. 2 or so? Then what?
Would the prophecy of a carefree holiday carry over to next Christmas? If so, who wants to wait that long for a fortune to come to fruition? Honestly, I'd feel pretty gyped. What if the Christmas I just endured was an absolute ordeal, and it all could have been averted if only I had gotten the cookie earlier? That would seem like some sort of cruel cosmic joke.
The more I thought about it, and believe me when I tell you that fortune cookie pondering often takes up the majority of any given day for me, the more I tried to make sense of the holiday-specific fortune.
I'm still at a loss. Dumb fucking cookie.
Posted by Ryan at December 2, 2002 04:48 PM
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