The Seventithird One

Guest post by Spencer Burton. Edited by Arlill Rodriguez.

I was at a Chinese buffet several days ago for my brother’s birthday, and I received this fortune: “Your lucky SAT answers are: a, c, d, a, b, b, c.”

My first thoughts were, “Well, they are a little late in getting this to me.” But the more I thought about it, which I tend to do right when I want to go to bed, I realized what a horrible fortune that was.

I am not saying the average fortune cookie is a mini work of Shakespeare, but come on? How lazy is this. I think the person writing this  just wanted an excuse to hit the keyboard a few times, and figured out they could justify hitting “a” through “d” as if they were test answers.

Secondly, this cookie will most likely miss its target audience, unless the writer assumed that the average person visiting a buffet are all high school kids gearing up for placement tests. Now, I certainly gorged myself on Chinese food at the time, but standardized tests were not on my mind at the time – at least not in front of what should I get with egg drop soup. Regardless, this fortune doesn't even apply to all high school kids looking to get into college. I never took the SAT. Instead I took the ACT, which is a common test kids on the east coast take in place of the SAT. So, this cookie already is likely to be given to someone who would care less about the answers.

Lastly, since when was the SAT only 7 questions long? It is probably over an hour long test, which penalizes guessing in order to make sure people taking it are really showing what they know. It is a test designed to be too long. Either this person is so far gone from the school that they forgot what the SAT was – which is possible, considering they like to bash on the key board and think most who eat at Chinese buffets are high school-ers – or they really were just trying to look smart in giving me something other than my lucky lottery numbers every time I decide to put down a couple pounds of food.

In short, I would tell the writer of this cookie to go back to saying dumb stuff about happiness, or success. Or at the very least start being cynical and insult people. At least then it might be something interesting and it would make engaging lines for all those people who add “in bed” at the end of them.