I like the word "fortune." It's a very optimistic word. Though it refers to the chance happening of both fortunate and unfortunate events, when someone tells me my fortune is about to be predicted, I anticipate it will be positive. The word very much suggests that I will be "fortunate" and perhaps even win a "fortune" in cash and prizes.
I also like the word "cookie." It is the word that is most frequently used to refer to delicious sugary snacks, after all.
So, it's no wonder that I like the idea of fortune cookies. In reality, of course, fortune cookies are flavorless and stale, but the promise of their magical powers to predict the future preserves their integrity as a delightful treat.
My most recent fortune, however, confused me a bit. It read: "Your luck has been completely changed today."
The reason I was confused is that I wasn't sure if my luck had been good or bad leading up to this fortune cookie. I hadn't won any sweepstakes or crashed my car in recent months, so it was difficult to tell if things were changing for the better or worse.
Adding to my confusion was the past-tense of the statement. It proclaimed that my luck "has been" completely changed, which meant it had already changed. According to this fortune, my luck had changed "completely," and I didn't even notice.
That got me to thinking. Just because my luck had changed didn't necessarily mean that there would be immediate effects. For example, my luck could have changed for the worse at noon, but it might take a few hours for me to come across a slippery staircase. It might even take days or weeks.
That got me to thinking even more. What if my luck had been good, but now it had changed for the worse, but nothing bad had happened yet? It's conceivable, then, that my luck could change again before anything bad happens. Then I'd have to look back on my period of bad luck as having been pretty lucky. What should I expect if my luck has completely changed after a lucky week of bad luck?
After thinking about this for a while, something occurred to me that brought great clarity to the whole issue. I remembered that I was just reading a piece of paper that was inside a cookie.
Paul Lundgren is a newspaper columnist and a very nice man. His e-mail address is paul [at] geekprom.com.
