Confidential Information

It was a cloudy, breezy day.  I needed comfort food.  For days, the thought of Chinese cuisine had been bubbling up from my unconscious.  But where, in the white-bread world of San Diego, could I find superior, authentic Mandarin?  I finally gave up the impossible dream and headed off to Panda Express.

While picking the remnants of Chow Mein out of my teeth with my right hand, I dutifully popped open the cellophane wrapped fortune cookie with my left.  As I crunched away on the, well, I’m not sure just what fortune cookies are made of; I stripped the slender paper purporting to offer insight into my future out of the remaining half of the cookie.  I read it.  I read it again.

 

Keep your plan secret for now!

Hmmm, I pondered, “Keep your plan secret for now!”  Immediately, I was awash in a sea of confusion.  Well, that maybe an overstatement.  Perhaps it was just a lagoon of confusion as my plans are generally rather inconsequential. I pushed thoughts of magnitude aside.  The more important consideration was, “What plan?”  I retraced the steps of my day so far.  I had arisen comparatively late today, but I had no plan for sleeping in. It just happened.  I toasted an English muffin, applied peanut butter and jelly (Knott’s Berry Farm Boysenberry Preserves, with seeds… mmm) and ate it.  I hadn't really given breakfast much forethought so I was pretty confident I had not violated the intent of the fortune there.  Then I finished a borrowed book I was reading.  I realized there was some planning involved here because I wanted to make sure I could return the book the next day.  But upon review, I hadn't really shared the plan with anyone so on the outside chance I was the victim of some time warp anomaly where I received the warning after the critical event occurred, I was sure I was safe where the book was concerned.

Keep your plan secret for now!

Satisfied I was not retroactively guilty of challenging fate; I cleaned off my table and made for Starbuck’s.  When I reached the front of the cue and it was my turn to order, I was struck by the conundrum, “Is ordering coffee, which is part of my planned activity for the afternoon (I’m retired folks, and reading at Starbuck’s in the afternoon while all of the saps are still working away is one of my greatest joys… not the greatest, but right up there in the top ten percent), a violation of the oriental admonishment?”

With the quick mental reflexes of a predatory cat, I chicaned.  “I’ll have a grande coffee and, a chocolate chunk cookie!” The chocolate chunk cookie was not part of the original plan.  So inserting spontaneity into the plan at the last second should mollify the fates.  I ate my cookie, drank my coffee, read my book without event.  I’m confident the bullet had been dodged so far.

Keep your plan secret for now!

While I was gratified to escape Starbuck’s without spilling on my shirt or being goaded into conversation by a complete stranger (By the way, have you ever considered how gruesome it would be to encounter an incomplete stranger?  Ick!) whom I am sure would have attempted to pries my plan from my lips by wile and craft, I was not confident that I had accurately identified the plan of concern.  My mind reeled.  Did I have any other plans?  My life is lived in a rather haphazard manner; on a wing and a prayer as it were.

Keep your plan secret for now!

Having successfully found my way home without resorting to the use of a plan, I parked myself upon the couch to cogitate on this dilemma.  Was I supposed to have a plan?  It had been a few weeks since my most recent trip to Panda Express.  Perhaps I missed a visit as the result of some cosmic misstep.  Was there some hapless schmoe out there racking his brains to formulate a plan as instructed by a fortune targeted at me but intercepted by accident?  And if so, when constructed, how would this play toy of the fates know to keep it secret as I had successfully intercepted the step two instruction?

Keep your plan secret for now!

But let’s assume that I do stumble upon a plan and am able to decipher it correctly.  I must keep it secret for now.  How will I know when the time is right to reveal my plan?  Am I committed then to eating lunch every day at Panda Express until I am given a cookie that contains the fortune, “You should share your preciously secret plan”?  If I do lunch at Panda Express, will fate assure that I am in the correct ordered place in line to get the appropriate cookie?  If I arrive at the door coincidentally with an aged dowager do I follow conventional decorum and hold the door for her, allowing her to take what should have been my place in line?  Or do I risk offending the gods by slamming her to the floor in an attempt to ensure I find the instructions I am seeking?  What if I then get a cookie whose fortune reads, “Courtesy is the true path to achieving your goals.”?

 Keep your plan secret for now!

As I retrace the critical path that has led me to this indecision, there are two things of which I am certain: one, I am not going to share my solution with you; two, from now on, it’s Mexican food.