# Fortune cookie messages are so useless! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 17, 2002, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402 "2002-12-17T20:25:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/1 "2002-12-17T20:25:35Z")
What’s up with fortune cookies? I always get non-informational messages. Like “You inspire leadership.” “Life is rich and rewarding.” “Happiness is found in many places.” HUH?!? How does this help me? You call those fortunes? From now on, I’d like to see messages that tell me something I can use. Such as “Near the jade tree, next to the babbling brook, is the hiding place of your many lost socks.” “The Lotus Blossum Temple is a place of many treasures. Next time, eat there instead.” “Health is a wise man’s most prized posession. Cut back on the boneless spare ribs, fat boy. OK, just two more.” “Many men have sought Joy. But she ain’t that easy. Try lowering your standards.” “The falling plank may lead to misery and pain. Move a little to the left. Um, now.” “The smile of a fool is not flattering. You have a little something stuck in your teeth.” ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/2 "2002-12-17T20:27:03Z")
Well, you obviously don’t know the trick: append the words “between the sheets” to any fortune to render it meaningful. Or at least more fun. Other people use “on the pleasure planet Raisa,” but that’s not as easy to remember. ---
**Author:** ![iconoplast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3d9bf3/32.png) [@iconoplast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iconoplast)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/3 "2002-12-17T20:32:57Z")
Or play more Nethack. Those fortune cookies have game hints in them. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/4 "2002-12-17T20:34:22Z")
I write Fortune cookie fortunes for a living. You sir, obviously do not comprehend the art form. Let me tell you about the hard work involved in rising up the corporate cookie ladder. I started my internship researching Lucky Lotto numbers. They are NOT placed willy nilly, let me tell you. In time I rose to the ranks of “head fortune writer”. Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to type on such a tiny type writer? I bet you don’t. How easy it must be to eat the cookie and mock my art as you leave it siphoning up the remaining grease of the Moo Goo Gai Pan. Ingrate. Why, you should be glad this isn’t the pit! just for your cold additude, I am writing a fortune now that I PROMISE you will be in your next meal at the Happy Golden Panda Chinese restaurant. It will read: You will have a raging case of the squirts tonight. oh yes. just you wait… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/5 "2002-12-17T20:43:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bad News Baboon \* > \*\*How easy it must be to eat the cookie and mock my art as you leave it siphoning up the remaining grease of the Moo Goo Gai Pan. \*\* Listen here, Joyce Chen, your Moo Goo Gai might not be so greasy if you’d cooked in in a Wok. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/6 "2002-12-17T20:47:18Z")
and where in my post do you see that I am a chef? no where, that’s where. I write fortunes, I do not cook the food. In fact, my studio is miles away from any restaurant. That’s like complaining to the chocolate chip makers that your famous amos cookie was crushed. go ahead, mock me. just you wait… I’ll get my homey Martin Yan and we’ll have to go bust your chopsticks. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/7 "2002-12-17T20:54:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bad News Baboon \* > \*\*That’s like complaining to the chocolate chip makers that your famous amos cookie was crushed. \*\* And that’s another thing! How come my Famous Amos cookies are sans fortune? Not so tough now, are you? Hmmm?!? I swear, it’s not easy being Sum Yung Hung Gai. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/8 "2002-12-17T21:13:49Z")
because they are called Famous Amos cookies, not Fortune Amos cookies. duh. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/9 "2002-12-17T21:36:22Z")
If you had the fortune program, as included on most UNIX-like systems, you could get gems like this: > [@](#): > > necrophilia, n: > Dropping in for a cold one. Doesn’t that just hit you where you live? This is not for family consumption:[spoiler] There was a young fellow of Greenwich Whose balls were all covered with spinach. He had such a tool It was wound on a spool, And he reeled it out inich by inich. But this tale has an unhappy finich, For due to the sand in the spinach His ballocks grew rough And wrecked his wife’s muff, And scratched up her thatch in the scrimmage.[/spoiler]It’s poetry, man! Finally, there are the AI Koans. You either get them or you don’t (A lot like LISP, actually.): > [@](#): > > A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. “I would like to give you this personality test”, said the outsider, “because I want you to be happy.” > > Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster – “I wish the toaster to be happy too.” I am a traffic light, and Alan Ginzberg kidnapped my laundry in 1927! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-cookie-messages-are-so-useless/143402/10 "2002-12-17T22:08:41Z")
The decline of Fortune Cookies is so widely known they used it in a Simpson’s episode (last season I think). Does anybody know _why_ they stopped being “Fortunes” or even nice sayings and just became random words?