My Day of Fortune

“Forget it, kid,” read my first fortune cookie of the box.

“Give up, now,” read my second fortune cookie.

My wife peeked over my shoulder to read my fortune, and snorted.

“You know they aren't actually Chinese. They were introduced to the U.S. in 1914 by a Japanese baker,” she quipped at me, munching her own cookie.

“What gives?” I asked, as I ripped apart a third cookie and didn't bother to read the fortune. “Are you criticizing my crap fortune?”

“Read me that one?” she asked.

“You will suffer unimaginable defeat and humiliation if you continue down your present trajectory,” read the third fortune.

“What the heck?” she asked. “Give me that box.”

“All I want is a good fortune,” I grimaced, handing her the box. “These fortunes suck.”

My wife read the fortune, “No, you suck.”

My wife looked at me, and then at the fortune.

“Okay, this is getting eerie,” she quivered a bit. “But I have to ask, are the cookies referring to a specific endeavor?”

I felt myself shrink a little, “Maybe?”

Her eyebrows shot up.

“All those days I've been working late, I haven't been working late,” I confessed.

“And you told…the…cookie people?”

“No…I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“That still doesn't explain what you've been doing the past evenings. Or why the cookies seem to know about it and I don't.”

“I assure you…it's not anything…bad.”

“The cookies seem to think otherwise.”

“You're going to trust a cookie over me?”

At that, my wife pulled an additional cookie out of the box and broke it open.

“Oh…she should,” she read aloud.

“David, what are you doing?” she asked, her eyes pleading.

I felt myself shrink to less than six inches tall.

“I've been trying to correct grammatical errors I come across on billboards and graffiti…” I paused. “Or what I think are grammatical errors.

“You know acutely well that grammar has never been my strong suit.”

“Oh…David,” she held me in her arms a few seconds.

She began pacing in our apartment, stray cookie crumbs on the floor crunching under feet and reminding us that we still didn't have the dog we promised each other a year ago.

“How bad is it? Or were they?” she stopped, holding one arm straight out in a manner of inquiry, like a sword to my neck.

“Well, I got caught…” I started.

“…and…?”

“multiple times…in fact, every time.”

“So what happened?”

“People filmed it, and then they commented on it, and in the process…I became a…a…meme.”

“A…meme?” she asked. “That doesn't sound so bad.”

“As of last night, teachers have begun using my image and…inaccuracies…to bring grammar back into the classroom. I've made learning grammar cool again, even hip again.”

I cried a bit as I started eating other cookies out of the box.

I randomly opened a fortune, it read, “As much as it feels good to come clean, one should always recognize one's limitations.”

“In all these memes, whether it's as a video, graphic, or whatever representation, I'm always seen as the person others shouldn't emulate. I'm seen as the bad person. I'm worse than Swiper on the Dora the Explorer cartoon. I'm worse than Skeletor. I'm lower than Lex Luthor. I'm the bad trucker. I'm the redneck buffoon. I'm the southern sheriff. I'm every villainous trope that has ever been created, but with heinous grammar to boot. And people love correcting me as a result. I can't walk into a public place without people recognizing me and correcting me…to my face. In correcting me, people feel like they're defeating the bad guy, or the bully, or whichever antagonist is perpetually standing in their way and making their life miserable. They're defeating my representation of poor grammar, of low learning, with proper grammar, and they're correcting other people's grammar, and in that act feeling better about themselves, and the whole world. They’ve inspired parties, rallies, movements, and rhetorical rhapsodies across the entire world.

“They've made bad grammar bad again.”

To my surprise, my wife hugged me.

“Oh David. You've given a spark of hope to intellectuals everywhere. You've made being wordy cool again.”

She gave me a kiss.

“Best anniversary gift, ever.”

I continued to shrink into oblivion as I pulled one last cookie out of the box. I popped open the cookie and read the fortune.

I made sure no one was looking before I tried to correct the grammar.