Duck billed platitudes

I love our neighborhood Chinese buffet. The food’s yummy, the staff is friendly and they do a brisk business. This being Texas, there’s a definite regional influence to the line-up: steak, frog legs, stir-fried chicken with jalapeno – even sushi rolls with ham and cream cheese.

Their fortune cookies suck, though. Rather than predict anything fun, they merely give advice, and the advice is so obvious even your grandmother would roll her eyes, stuff like, ‘If you are kind to others, you will go far.’ I did get one the other day that was more creative than usual; it read, ‘Ask not what your fortune cookie can do for you, but what you can do for your fortune cookie.’

I get a kick out of their dry erase board, too. Looks like Chinese and Korean down below. I should have had them translate it. Actually, I should have had them translate the shirt I was wearing, ‘cuz it had some Chinese writing on it. I once worked with a Japanese woman, and one of our customers walked in wearing a T-shirt with a big Japanese character on it. My co-worker nudged me and whispered, ‘I wonder if she knows her shirt says, I am diseased,?’ Ever since that incident, I’m a bit self-conscious when wearing what – to me – seems like a cool shirt with foreign writing on it unless I’ve had it translated first!