Misfortune Cookies

Ug! People in 2013 are just the worst! Seriously, the worst! I know this sort of thing goes back far beyond 2013, but the web and it’s various social media have given every uptight idiot’s complaint more of a voice than it ever should be allowed to have and they’re taking full advantage of it. Every goddamned thing has to be some kind of outrage now, and it has me well…outraged! And yes, I do see a bit of irony in a guy with a blog complaining about people complaining, so there’s no need to waste your time pointing it out if you’re of the mind to disagree with me.

In the latest example of this is why we can’t have nice things, we’re no longer allowed to have even the slightest hint of a romantic message in our fortune cookies because a few terrible parents complained that they didn’t want their lovely little loin lemons reading such filth and then asking them difficult questions.

So now, instead of possibly interesting things like “One who admires you greatly is hidden before your eyes,” “Romance and travel go together” or “The evening promises romantic interest,” we’ll be seeing things like “You make every day special.” That begs the question, special to whom? And once we ask that question, couldn’t we be treading a bit too dangerously close to romance territory for somebody’s delicate sensibilities again?

And what’s wrong with “one who admires you greatly is hidden before your eyes”?” If I were a parent who wasn’t horrible at my job, I would answer if asked that I admire you, little buddy. You’re teaching me new things every day. Is that really so hard? Even a quick it doesn’t make sense now but one day you’ll understand is probably going to get you through the what’s this about romance and travel query. Kids are smart, but they’ll take a lot of things at face value. Like honestly, a fucking stork? If you can get a kid to buy that, you can get him to put off the romance thing for a while if you at least live in the neighbourhood of competence.

I’ll leave you with these maddening, impossibly wrongheaded words from a guy who makes fortune cookies.

“Some parents sent us e-mails. They said they didn’t want their kids reading them,” said the company’s VP. “Different people have a different perspective.”
He added that any fortune that gets more than two or three complaints will be screened out to keep everyone happy.
“We want to put messages inside our cookies that don’t upset a single person. We don’t want customers to have negative feelings,” he said.

Good luck with that. Pretty sure that’s what the people in that musical were getting at when they sang about the impossible dream.