Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 226
ESCAPE Weeklyt
Aug. 17 - 23, 2012tUIFTJHOBMDPN
Truth in the corner of your eye
Sometimes, the real message is not what’s written
N
ow, I don’t credit fortune cookies charmed, like it would be in a Harry Potter
with any more power to predict
episode, and it would be personalized,
the future than I do horoscopes.
just at first glance, for whoever cracked
However, I always enjoy reading both, if
open the cookie. After that it would
only to see just how far off the mark they
quickly rewrite itself into triteness so that
are, or just how vague they can be …
subsequent readers wouldn’t catch the
you know, vague enough so that those
secret message.
fools of us who read them
Now, if the fortune had
might imagine there is some
actually used the word
truth there and actually
“preposterous,” I would have
think they were written by
cried “Foul!”
wise wizards in tune with the
You see, at one point in my
universal vibration.
life I intended to go into the
So, imagine my chagrin
Misfortune Cookie business
recently when, after jealously
— where every printout was
hoarding my fortune cookie
an insult or a prediction of
Jim
Walker
until I’d bloated myself on
bad luck. I just never got the
%POU5BLF.F4FSJPVTMZ financial backing necessary
multiple helpings of Chinese
food, as I finally cracked open
to get that grand idea off the
this nugget of nonsense and glanced at the ground. And so, if my cookie’s suggested
message, I read: “Your life is preposterous.” fortune had, indeed, used “preposterous,”
Now, my first reaction was to think to
it could only mean that someone had
myself, “Say, you don’t see that one much.” stolen my business plan.
My second reaction was to wonder how
But let’s get back to the core issue,
they knew me so well.
which is that I saw “preposterous” when
My third reaction was to grumble
the word was actually “prosperous.” True,
out, “Why, that’s just rude,” and take
they are somewhat similar words, so my
another look.
mind’s accessorizing wasn’t too much
This time I read it more carefully:
of a stretch. However, when I consider
“Your life is prosperous.”
it deeply, well, my life is preposterous
And this time my reaction was: “Well,
— ridiculous, outrageous, unbelievable,
that’s more like it. But they couldn’t be
absurd and laughable — and all in a
more wrong.”
magically good way. And I gratefully
However, all this got me to thinking.
accept the reminder the universe sent me.
My first laid-back look at that fortune,
On the other hand, my life is only
kind of out of the corner of my eye, had
prosperous when compared to third-world
observed what was actually typed there,
nomads living in a prolonged drought.
but my mind had added in as much spin as
Now, while my encounter with wordmy inattention allowed it to.
swapping was humorous and enlightening,
Could it be that here, in this
I can imagine this sort of thing could
freewheeling “mind’s eye,” or “third eye,”
become a problem if it occurs too often
is where pure self-awareness, cosmic
— whether you create the malapropism or
prediction and even psychic ability lie?
misinterpret what is being communicated
Hmmm….
to you by someone else.
But maybe it wasn’t a look through my
I mean, consider…
third eye that clued me in. Maybe, just
“The police have, indeed, comprehended
maybe, the fortune in that cookie was
two auspicious persons.”
Created by Jim Walker
It could happen, right?
“Politicians understand the importance
of bondage between a mother and child.”
They just won’t admit it.
“Women’s problems … you know what
I mean, groinecology.”
Sounds like Yogi Berra.
“He used to perform in a traveling
menstrual show.”
A job’s a job.
“She was queen of the women’s
lubrication movement.”
God bless her.
“This is his last will and testicle.”
Well, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
“I’m not a pessimist, I’m an optometrist.”
It’s good to see yourself clearly.
“He passed with flying carpets.”
Well then, he cheated.
“He was a vast suppository of
information.”
Ouch.
“Having one wife is called monotony.”
Amen.
“Socrates died from an overdose of
wedlock.”
Everything in moderation, my friends.
“The Native American squabs carried
porpoises on their backs.”
That just seems physically impossible.
“In the spring, salmon swim upstream
to spoon.”
When they wake up in the morning,
they spawn.
“It’s in the first book of the Bible,
Guinnessis.”
I’ll drink to that.
“In the Middle Ages, pheasants led
terrible lives.”
Don’t they still, with all that hunting?
“It is kisstomary to cuss the bride.”
Especially if she’s your ex.
“King Alfred conquered the Dames.”
You go boy.
“Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for
rabbis.”
Oy vey.
Remember, I always enjoy righting
for you folks. It helps keep me between
the limes. And we’ll do this again soon.
Comment at jwalker@the-signal.com or at
http://Twitter.com/DontSeriously.
Yes, after an intense lobbying campaign
by, well, two or three of you, my Don’t Take
Me Seriously columns are back in Escape,
where they first took life, and where readers
won’t mistake them for political opinion.
And, we aren’t through with the changes
here, my friends. Big things are coming, so
keep an eye out.
