Pick a cookie with the fold facing you, not the crimped ends
Touching the wrong cookie negates that fortune
Don’t open the cookie until you are done with the meal
You have to eat the cookie before reading your fortune.
The fortune only works if you eat the entire cookie.
I don’t know if any of these rules are true.
When and by what mechanism does a fortune vest?
I was hoping fortunes were transferable.
I had a fortune cookie and I wanted to share the good fortune with my dog. So, I gave him the last bite of the cookie. I’m afraid I may have negated the entire fortune.
Also… feel free to share your fortune cookie stories.
I don’t know the rules, but I have an interesting story.
When I decided to propose to my (now) wife, she was living in another city about 500 miles away. I had spend the weekend with her, proposed, she accepted, et cetera. Then I drove home, wondering if it was Too Soon – we had only been dating for a few months and everything was happening so fast.
Just before getting back to my apartment I stopped for Chinese food. After eating, I broke open the cookie and read my fortune: “THERE IS STILL TIME TO TAKE A DIFFERENT PATH.” Jeez, thanks for calming my fears there, Mr. cookie!
I’ve heard of (and adhere to) rules 3 - 5. 1 and 2 are unfamiliar to me.
That, and you have to read your fortune aloud, and end it by adding the phrase “between the sheets.” Taking the ages of the other diners into consideration before doing so of course.
Oh, and the fortune cookie fortune I’m reading right now says, “This thread will soon be moved to Cafe Society.”
I always take the fortune cookie closest to me if I’m with others and we all have to read them out load and add “in bed” at the end. I rarely eat mine though.
I was on a second or third date when I got a triple-fortune cookie. All three fortunes said the same thing, “Your lover will never want to leave you.” When I shared my fortune with my date, she didn’t seem all that enthusiastic. I guess it was a little too early in the relationship for a committment based on a fortune cookie. And no, the fortune did not come true–she broke up with me 3 months later.
The 80 year old grandmother insisted on the ‘in bed’ bit, but this is the same woman who got us to smile for photos as small children by telling us to say “sex and pickles” instead of “cheese”
I’ve only heard that you are supposed to eat the cookie before you read the fortune, but I don’t do that.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a double-fortune cookie. The top fortune said, “You look pretty”. A little creepy, as if someone is watching me from across the room, but I’ll take it.
The second fortune said, “In youth and beauty, wisdom is rare”. Great. So, I’m pretty but dumb. :dubious:
BTW, I love this:
The first time I heard the rule of adding “in bed” I was at an office lunch, with all of these older, genteel types of the nonprofit I worked for. I was probably about 20, it was my first real job, and the president of the organization announced that it was the Rule, so we all had to do it. He was about about 70.
It made an impression on me. Now I always add it mentally, if I manage not to say it out loud.
I have no rituals about fortune cookies – they’re fun, but it’s silly to overthink things.
However, I did have a series of great fortune cookie fortunes in 1984.
At Lunacon, I was at a dinner with a literary agent. My cookie said, “Your new venture will be successful.” A few months later, he took me on as a client.
Later that year, my fortune was “You will never have to worry about a steady income.” That actually has been true – I’ve never been rich, but I’ve always been able to find a steady job.
In October of that year, my fortune was “Soon you’ll be sitting on top of the world.” On November 6, I sold my first novel. On November 11, my daughter was born.
Those were the only times I ate Chinese that year.
No rules, though mom told me ages ago that you have to eat the cookie to make the fortune come true. Where are all the delicious orange-flavored FCs of my youth, anyway?
That aside, best fortune I’ve ever gotten: You are the crispy noodle in the vegetarian salad of life. Carried that one in my wallet for several years, but I think I’ve lost it.
My father always told me if you didn’t like the fortune, you SHOULD eat the cookie, because then it wouldn’t come true. I guess that’s totally the opposite of what everybody else says. I don’t like fortune cookies anyway, so I bring them home and give them to my dogs.
I never seem to get fortunes any more. I just get stupid advice.
Though, I give the writers some credit for specificity, as if I had been agonizing over which car I wanted to buy I’d have been blown away. As it is, I’m not in the market.
I would so buy a bag of FC’s if they had such messages inside. For whatever reason this one made me remember an old Shelley Berman comedy bit where he pretends to be making a phone call and a little kid answers and quickly hangs up on Shelley, and Shelley calls back and screams at the kid, “Don’t hang up, kid. I’m God. If you hang up, lightning will strike you and you will die!”
The cookie would just have “lightning will strike you and you will die” to cheer you through the rest of your evening and life. No need (or place) for a backstory.
When I was a kid, my family went out for Chinese and my brother’s fortune read, “Resist and the Devil will flee from you.” To this day I still bring it up sometimes.
I have noticed these days fortunes have gotten more ironic. I got the old, “Help I am trapped in a Fortune Cookie factory!” and other silly ones like that more and more lately.
