Fortune Cookie Thoughts

I wonder what people think about fortune cookies. They're purely American (I didn't see a single one during a ten day trip to China earlier this year, and that included going to more than a few Chinese restaurants), and I think most people dismiss them as a marketing gimmick. I also think there's something lurking just beneath the surface that's worth a closer look, and I'm trying to figure it out.

There were two (!) Chinese restaurants in the town where I grew up (that's a lot for the speck-on-the-map I used to call home as a kid). One was on Route 66 and the other was by the Indian Hospital. We stopped going to the latter when a controversy erupted over a boil-order, which left the one on Route 66 for my family's dining pleasure. That one was located in a former used car dealership in the shape of a barn, but I'm getting off topic here...

One time my grandmother was visiting us and I distinctly remember her laughter when my dad opened his fortune cookie and said “You are like a catfish, all mouth and no brain.” Grammy (we called my mom’s mom grammy) thought for a minute, and then let out a roar of laughter. You would have thought she had just heard the funniest joke ever told. Of course, dad had played that line on my sister and me so many times by then that it had long since lost its lustre, but it was fun to watch someone else react for the first time. It’s a simple memory, but one I’ve cherished and may have something to do with developing my interest in the topic.

Personally, I like “Help! I’m trapped inside a fortune cookie factory” but I tend to save that for special times. Like when someone’s grandmother is at the table. Often there are general maxims that could safely apply to anyone’s life, but some of these fortune cookie writers are getting more sophisticated and I’m just here to say I appreciate their work. So I’m hoping to keep a list of the ones that somehow resonated with me…just for kicks, really. That's the point of the sidebar "Fortune Cookie Garden." I don’t do it because I believe in any kind of predictive power, but for their ability to encourage you to think about what’s going on in your life. We could all use little reminders to do that from time to time, couldn’t we? You go, Fortune Cookie.

A geography lover weeps

It's a bit old by now, but worth remembering. I'm starting a drive to airdrop millions of atlases into the Palmetto State.

Target Corp. Chronicles

My brother's wife (Hallie...of fried cranberry sauce fame) has sent me on a series of misadventures to Target stores throughout the greater Phoenix area in search of a glow-in-the-dark-sings-songs-when-you-touch-it form of Pooh Bear. Okay, so I went to two different Targets, but neither of them had it. I thought I was being efficient with my website print-out, but the whole effort turned out to be a waste of time. I settled for some kind of piggy bank that keeps track of how much money is in there so you don't have to count it. But that's not really the point of this story.

The point of this story is that all this Target exposure brought back memories of my favorite Target - the one in San Bruno, CA with the escalator thingys for your carts. I'm about to admit something slightly (possibly very) embarrassing, but often I would sneak away from my desk at the nearby Gap HQ building and have lunch at the Target food section. Mostly Taco Bell. Actually, it was always Taco Bell. There were several benefits to these outings:

1. They charged less and gave you more meat per taco than the Taco Bell that was right across the street from work.
2. There was almost no chance that I would run into someone from work (we introverts need our mental processing time).
3. There was always a group of elderly Italian men talking smack to each other sitting in the corner.

The last reason was the real attraction. I started going because of the aforementioned taco value proposition, but made a habit of this excursion when I was studying for the GMAT and needed a place I knew I wouldn't be disturbed in order to squeeze in some math problems during my lunch break. I kept coming back just to see if the group of old guys was still there, and it always was. From what I remember they talked about horse racing a lot, and I admired their camaraderie as much as their raunchy jokes (they also drank a lot of coffee, which I appreciated too). I'll be lucky to have friends like that to joke around with at the Target food court when I'm their age...if they were on Facebook they'd be trout-slapping themselves silly. They're sort of heroes to me.

So what do you wanna be when you grow up?

So I'm in my final year of business school and the fact that most of my classmates are concentrating on finding their next job is becoming painfully obvious. Mostly because I have no idea what to say when they ask me what my plans are. I just don't feel the pressure to lock something down yet, to be honest. I mean, I'm graduating in May and if I knew what I was going to be doing already it might feel a little constricting.

However, it probably makes sense to think about it more...and in so doing I was thinking back on all the jobs I had back when I just had to find something to do. And so, ranked from worst to best:

9. Door-to-Door Vacuum Cleaner Salesperson - Claremore, Oklahoma.
I totally sucked at this. My friend JR told me I could make a lot of money though and I fell for it. Anyone every buy a Kirby? Well, not from me you didn't. I BARELY sold one to my mom, and even that was after she negotiated the price down to where I was basically selling at cost. In retrospect she should have been the one trying to sell those damn things. I gave a demo to my high school English teacher and got some lipstick off her carpet though, so I guess something good came out of it.

8. Restaurant Host at Brasserie T, Northfield, Illinois.
Another crappy job. I got chewed out by the chef-owner for not answering the phone with the full mandatory greeting. Something like, "Thank you for calling the Brasserie T, this is Jeremy at your service, how can I help you this evening?" I mean, that's just a lot to say when you're trying to help someone. My idea was to just say "Brasserie T" to verify they called the right place and get down to brass tacks. Reservations? No problem. Left your jacket behind? Let's go look. But no...I had to engage the poor callers with a five minute introduction guaranteed to mutually annoy. Even more annoying were the uppity northshore Chicago clientele. I was once summoned to a table to be told that it was too warm. When I said I would adjust the thermostat the patron's reply was, "Yes, you will." I cranked it up to 80 degrees after that. Who did that guy think he was? I lasted two weeks.

7. Lawn Mower - Claremore, Oklahoma.
This is not a good occupation for someone extremely allergic to any kind of grass. Like me. That didn't really seem to bother my dad though, and as I was eager to make the measly $25 per week he offered for the task I swallowed my seldane, put on my facemask, and hopped on the tractor. That's right. Tractor. I got to where I could manouvre that thing around oak trees and around the large sandstone outcropping our our front yard. Two sheared acres later I had to go back and rake that crap up, which was really the part that killed me. I did like some things about this job though - since the engine was so loud and I was wearing a facemask (think Japanese person with a cold at Shinjuku Station) I would sing at the top of my lungs and nobody knew how off-pitch I was. The benefits ended there. Aside from the $25, of course.

6. Substitute Teacher - Claremore, Oklahoma.
One of the benefits of living in a small town is the ability to take jobs for which you are in no way qualified. Other places get bogged down with checking for things like credentials, but not Claremore, Oklahoma. My college started very late in the academic year (last week of September) and my winter break also overlapped a large part of the local school calendar, so I thought this might be a relatively easy way to make a buck while away from college. Whoops! Those little shits.

Once a male student was being ridiculed for wearing women's jeans to school (remember Jordache?). I got annoyed because I knew his family was poor (as many families were in my town) and his mom probably got them at the Goodwill without thinking about it. I had clothes from Goodwill also, at least when they didn't come from Wal-Mart. Normally I'm pretty mellow but in this case I think I set a record for number of students kicked out of class in a five minute period. There were a few rewarding moments though...like when one student said I was "tough, but fair." I took that as a compliment.

5. Sales Associate at the Gap - Utica Square, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
This job was okay, except that the store was 40 minutes from my house and paid minimum wage, which was like $4.25 or something ridiculous. I basically spent my paycheck on gas and clothes. Then there were the times that I was "on call" and never knew if I had to come in or not, which was kind of bullshit. Once I remember going to Lake o' the Cherokees with my family and getting called in...I sort of checked out after that. On the bright side, I set a record for highest sale when some crazy woman from NW Arkansas came in and spent over $1,000 (this was 1994 or something) on back-to-school clothes for her three kids. I guess she didn't want to make the drive back empty handed.

This job had another very positive influence on my life though - for the first time I worked with someone who was openly gay. I would hear stories about his adventures at a local gay bar, the "Tool Box." Yeah, Tulsa is a classy town. Then there were all the Oral Roberts University students who worked there and were totally closeted. It was kinda weird when they would flirt with me and then talk about their girlfriends. Except that I did the same thing.

4. Football Recruiting Video Maker - Claremore, Oklahoma.
Now we're getting somewhere! I was slight in high school (late bloomer again...) and didn't really play many sports outside of soccer. But that doesn't really matter. In my town all that mattered was that I didn't play football. Always looking to make lemonade, I decided I would contract my services to videotape the kids cool (and big) enough to play on Friday nights. They could then edit the footage and send the tapes to college recruiters. I know at least one player got a scholarship to play at Kansas State through this arrangement. And I got to film close-ups of the football players, so it was a win-win.

3. Geography Teaching Assisstant - Evanston, Illinois.
This was just easy. Grading the weekly quiz was about the extent of my duties, but the benefit was getting to hear the wisecracks the professor had for some of the people in the class after hours. And I got to take out vengeance on the students who didn't know where the Ouachita Mountains were.

2. Sales Associate at Rand McNally - Skokie, Illinois.
As far as retail goes I was like a kid in a candy store. I got to sell maps. And talk to people about their vacations. Nuf said.

1. Church Security Guard - Evanston, Illinois.
I have to credit my friend Slacky for finding this gig first; I got to take over when she moved on to bigger and better things. Although nobody would come out and say it, my job was basically to keep homeless people out of the building where Sunday School classes were held. Since there weren't really that many homeless people, I basically sat in the lobby and got paid to study. I specifically remember learning a lot about meteorology during this time. Oh, I had to turn the lights off and adjust the heat before I left too. I mean, it's not like I did absolutely nothing. Okay, so at times I would read the postcards the choir director would send from his vacations to Key West and Provincetown when locking up the office. So I did that too.