Fortune Cookie Tries Radical Honesty, Ruins Everyone's Tuesday

A LaughParty comic take.

Comic fiction: What follows is entirely made up, inspired by the universal experience of opening a free dessert and getting a mild emotional bruise.

It began, as most great sagas do, with a takeout order. Our entirely fictional hero, Dana, requested lo mein, two spring rolls, and enough duck sauce to fill a birdbath. The food arrived hot and correct. Life was good. Then she cracked open the fortune cookie.

The little paper strip read: 'You will find a penny today. It will be sticky.'

Dana flipped it over, hoping the lucky numbers would redeem things. The back said: 'Lucky numbers: we checked. There aren't any.'

Most people would stop there. Dana is not most people. She went back to the bag, found a second cookie meant for a roommate who was, crucially, not home, and broke it open like a detective breaking a case. It said: 'Someone is thinking about you right now. It is your dentist.'

Our imaginary investigation traced the cookies to a fictional factory in an industrial park that smells faintly of vanilla and regret. There, management admitted they had recently hired a new fortune writer, Gerald, a retired weather forecaster who simply cannot stop predicting light drizzle.

'Gerald is very accurate,' said a made-up spokesperson, holding a clipboard. 'Last week he wrote, Your socks will be slightly damp for reasons you will never discover. We got four hundred emails confirming it.'

Sample fortunes from Gerald's desk include: 'A great adventure awaits you, but it is mostly paperwork.' 'You will soon receive an important message. It is a reminder to update your software.' And the fan favorite: 'Good things come to those who wait. You are in the wrong line.'

Surprisingly, customers are divided. Some want their mystical optimism back. Others find Gerald refreshing. 'Every other cookie promises me love and wealth,' said one invented patron. 'This one told me my phone would hit one percent right before I needed directions. And it did. That's a relationship built on trust.'

The factory is now leaning into the chaos with a new product line called Realistic Expectations, sold alongside a premium tier of cookies that simply say 'Eh.'

As for Dana, she has made peace with the experience. She laminated both fortunes and hung them on her fridge next to a magnet shaped like a noodle. She says they keep her grounded.

Her order the following week came with one more cookie. The fortune inside read: 'You will read this, sigh, and eat the cookie anyway.'

She did. It was delicious. Gerald, somewhere, was right again.

Inspired by I ordered noodles today and it came with an (un)fortune cookie? 😭.