#654 View to the Future

So I got this fortune the other day. As you know, I’m always amused by the key to my destiny being housed in a random cheap cookie but I figure, you know, it beats tea laves.
I suppose there’s nothing intrinsically crazy about cookie clairvoyance compared to viewing the pattern of sodden leaves remaining in one’s teacup as a guide to the future.
A fortune cookie seems no less superstitious than many of the friendly pieces of pagan behavior we employ. Even the most Christian among us occasionally knocks on wood. Or throws salt over his shoulder for luck before scratching that one last lottery ticket.
So I guess it shouldn’t have been completely unpredictable when a person at an event I attended the other day stepped in some dog poo and proclaimed it was good luck.
“Doesn’t look so good to me,” I offered, as he used a stick to scrape the gooey mass from his sole. I admit, it was fortunate he was wearing biking shoes and his treads were not too crenulated.
Still, one would have to go far to include the words “good” and “luck” in that sequence to describes the process it was going to require to remove the excremental deposit.
“Oh yes,” he said, “my wife is Chinese and she says stepping in dog crap is lucky.”
I suppose it depends on your perspective. If I was, say, offered the choice of stepping off a cliff or stepping into dog crap, I’m sure I would see the latter alternative as an incredibly fortunate turn of events.
Given the ordinary course of walking in America however, poop-free stepping is my much-preferred alternative. I, in fact, thank my lucky stars when I manage to barely avoid fecal piles when out on a jog.
But that’s me. I tend to plod along carefully in life.
As my fortune cookie said, “You are not one to make quick rash decisions.”
As opposed to slow rash decisions of course, or quick cautious decisions.
As my cookie illustrates, Chinese and English are not always on the same page word-wise.
Maybe the guy’s wife, just maybe, said stepping in dog poop is yucky.
America, ya gotta love it