Last night we had Chinese.

Or, more accurately, last night my wife had Chinese, and I had Thai. It’s one of those Americans-assume-all-this-Asian-food-belongs-together places, which isn’t the most culturally sensitive way to market cuisine, but the hosts are always friendly and the food is good. And after every meal, you get a fortune cookie (which, by happenstance, is of Japanese origin!), regardless of which way your palate swings.

I love the taste of fortune cookies. The hint of lemon, the barely-perceptible traces of vanilla... and then there is the fun little slip of paper inside.

What I don’t love is the fact that more often than not, the “fortune” is more of a “platitude.” I dig that it’s easier to produce a pile of platitudes — all you need to do is shake a few greeting cards — and the occasional pseudo-mystic predictions that make it out of the cookie factory are so generalized that they require a high degree of interpretation and an exceptionally open mind to bear even the faintest whiff of relevancy.

All the same, I am a science fiction writer. How could I not love a fortune like this one?