July 27, 2001

Ill fortune

Today, several of us went out to lunch at a P.F. Chang's. They serve nothing so
mundane as Chinese food there; I think they call it Pacific Rim food, or something
like that. The food's very good, actually.

Anyway, it was a good-bye
lunch for someone leaving the company; we haven't been doing that much because at
the rate people have been hemorrhaging out of here, there's not enough lunches in
the week. But someone decided to organize this for those of us who'd been working
on a project with the guy leaving so I thought I'd go.

Now on this
project, we have bi-weekly lunch meetings, and we had all gone to P.F. Chang's
about a month ago. One Chinese restaurant tradition they do uphold is fortune
cookies at the end of the meal. At that meal, the guy who's leaving got a fortune
something like "You will receive a promotion or new opportunity at work", whereas
mine was along the lines of "Nothing interesting will happen to you in the near
future." Ok, I'm making that up, but I do remember that mine was totally
lame.

So today, I opened my cookie with great anticipation, to
find....nothing. No fortune. Empty cookie. No future. Bad omen.

When
the loud and gung-ho waiter came by we acquainted him with my plight. He squatted
down by my chair and said "But that means your future can be whatever you want,
sweetheart." I said, "Nice try, and DON'T fucking call me sweetheart."
(Technically speaking, I only thought that last part, by it may have been in my
eyes, because he stood up quickly and said, "But don't worry, I'll get you another
one."

He did, and fairly promptly. And once, again, with great
anticipation, I opened my cookie, waiting to see if the world was about to dish up
the embodiment of my wildest dreams.

Nope.

This fortune
said, "You are cautious, conservative, and practical." Well, clearly not, or I
wouldn't mind getting a fortune like that.

I could just spit.

Posted by dichroic at July 27, 2001 04:59 PM
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