I get it. I am fully aware that fortune cookies are not Chinese and have no cosmic pathway to a reincarnated Confucius. But I can’t help the eager feeling of cracking open the cookie and reading the words, “You can quit your job and still send your children to college.”

Instead, I get fortunes with this crap:

So when I got one last week that not only told me specifically WHAT to do but actually gave me a time line of when I should do it, I admit I thought it was a ransom note. (Author’s Note: how cool would that be? A book where the bad guys keep leaving instructions in fortune cookies? “Drop the bag with the sixteen million in unmarked bills in the garbage can inside the men’s room.” And then in a shocking plot twist the cookies get swapped in the restaurant and an elderly couple from New Jersey who HATE each other gets that fortune, and they each think the other spouse is plotting to kill them, only the real kidnapping victim is still chained to a steel I-beam on the 400th floor of an unfinished skyscraper in Dubai because no one put the money in the bathroom! Don’t steal that idea!)

But my fortune from last week told me to not only play the lottery, but to do it THAT weekend. Ordinarily I don’t fall for pranks from the Universe, but when everything kind of falls into place, you start to think just maybe you’re going to play the lottery AND win, and then you won’t have to be a teacher in a prison anymore. Our state doesn’t have a lottery, even though we have one of the worst educational funding records in the history of people going to school; BUT I happened to be going out of town THAT WEEKEND! I COULD PLAY THE LOTTERY IN THE STATE WHERE I WAS GOING!

You can guess how it turned out. Obviously, since I’m still sitting here writing blog posts hoping against hope that someone thinks I’m funny enough to want to publish all my drivel in one bound edition and make it available at your local bookstore, I probably didn’t win anything other than the receipt from buying the ticket.

Here’s the punch in the throat part: the cookie never promised that I was going to WIN the lottery, it just merely suggested that I PLAY the lottery. What a crumby joke. (See? Get it? I’m FREAKIN’ hilarious!)

The problem is you would think I would have learned my lesson after the state government of Georgia suckered me out of one dollar, but no. I had to go to McDonald’s on my lunch hour yesterday to play Monopoly. My co-worker and I had it all planned out. She was to get Park Place, I was going to get Boardwalk, and then we just wouldn’t come back from our lunch breaks. And I mean wouldn’t come back to civilization, not just to work. Sure enough, she gets to her pieces first (because I’m driving with two hands on the steering wheel) and she’s got Park Place! It was meant to be! The Universe is in line with our lust for financial security! I went ahead and veered the car towards the Interstate to head to Florida.

And then I got Baltic Avenue. Even my snack foods are underachievers. No one wants Baltic, even when playing ACTUAL Monopoly. The rent on it is like $3, and that’s if you own both purple properties AND you have nine hotels on it.

All of this has taught me a valuable lesson. If I can’t win the lottery when the cookie clearly told me I was going to, and if I can’t even win a free small French fries at McDonald’s, it’s a damn good thing I didn’t try to meet my husband on eHarmony. The one I ended up with wouldn’t have had a pulse.