#923 Gift of Fortune

Not long ago my son and I ate at an Asian restaurant. At the end of our meal, we were served the obligatory fortune cookie. Fortunes in cookies have been getting blander and blander in recent years. Partially because just about anything can be twisted to offend someone and they want to avoid that.
You just never know. A fortune saying your mom is beautiful may hit you when you’re having your first Thai cuisine after her funeral. No matter how happy they try to be, fortunes (like jokes) can make someone sad sometime.
I think the ones I got were destined to be received by someone else. And in light of recent current events, that someone was pretty important.
I think I got the President Bush fortune cookie.
I was really lucky because I got two fortunes in one cookie. The first fortune was weird. It said, “You will receive an unexpected gift.”
Well not any more! Now that I got the fortune, I’ll be expecting it all the time.
The other fortune said, “Everything will now come your way.”
Everything? I can tell you, when we left the restaurant, I was very wary crossing the street.
But a short time afterward, when Bush was doing his surprise farewell press conference in Iraq, these fortunes totally applied. He definitely received an unexpected gift. To the tune of two shoes flying through the air whose most immediate destiny appeared to be his head.
Bush was amazing when he ducked them. And the journalist was an amazing shoe shooter.
Bush’s gift was not only unexpected as the first fortune indicated but, in fact, as the second fortune predicted, everything was now coming his way.
Much has been said about the lax security that allowed the shoe flinger. And from now on you can bet the Secret Service will be asking everyone to remove their shoes during press conferences.
So at least one good thing has come of all this: The hardwood floors of press conference rooms everywhere will be saved.
But an ounce of prediction is worth a pound of cure.
Maybe the Secret Service should have been intercepting Bush’s fortune cookies…
America, ya gotta love it.