nothing of note will happen in the part of the week when you'll still be around

The fortune cookie. Portender of all things trite. Today, I had the pleasure of cracking one open only to find myself crestfallen at the message of hope it conveyed.

"If your desires are not extravagant, they will be granted."

Pessimism rarely rears it's ugly head around me, but when I read this missive, I got to thinking: Isn't this just another way of saying, "Aim low, dude, because that way you won't be disappointed."

What kind of fortune cookie is this? Normally I don't buy into prognostication; the cookie would have been far more accurate if it had read, "You will now chew on the most stale 'treat' you'll ever experience."

I like the adage cookies better anyway. The good news about that, I suppose, is that 85% of the "fortune cookies" one gets with the bill at a Chinese restaurant are really adage cookies, not fortune cookies. No prognostication, no foul.

"It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man."