Operation Misfortune Cookie
One of the many jobs I did while in the food industry was working as a Tech in a quality lab. My primary function in that particular lab was to assure the quality of our products.
One of our many products at that Company was fortune cookies. The cookies were produced for us by another company as a pass-through item. The niche item was processed by a small Chinese-American bakery, but we would still validate the quality of the cookies as they bore our brand logo.
Don was a guy who always came into the lab to "check" the quality report of the particular line he was on, but not really in charge of. This follow-up by him should have really only taken a few seconds a day. Unless he was really mad at me, which sometimes happened, he would come into the air conditioned lab to take refuge from the heat for ten to twenty minutes.
Don was always snacking, and he would munch on the test cookies when a sample box was being inspected. These got thrown out anyway.
Then Don would check his fortune. These fortunes were always very fortuitous. In fact, I had heard that we had a lawyer look them over before they were published in the cookie to make sure the Company could not be liable for whatever it said.
Don was the ignorant sort who believed in the authenticity of the spontaneity of professional wrestling. Don spent his entire lifetime not really wanting to learn anything productive.
Don's brother-in-law worked in the same place, on the same shift. When it came to Don, his brother-in-law was a one man truth squad. The brother-in-law would tell us that Don was lying about his military service; about being from Kentucky; on and on. But then, I couldn't say if his brother-in-law was totally trustworthy either. Don's brother-in-law was a hair trigger hothead, beyond anything someone would want to taunt or confront.
Don was also given to much drama. At least once, maybe twice, he demolished his television after a Dallas Cowboys loss. I used to tell him before a game that he needed to put chicken wire in front of his TV.
Don's dramatic unpredictability tended to intimidate the newer workers, and he knew it, so he would play the bully. But as factory life is so boring, a dramatic person can be of some real entertainment value, and make the time pass more bearably. So naturally, some of us would proactively seek to prompt a dramatic display from him. Once the newer guys saw us clowning on him, they would relax.
The best way to taunt Don was to disparage one of his sports teams. He never went for the local teams, which in a rural area means within a three hour drive. Don only went for teams with a solid sustained winning history. I guess that somehow that made him a winner personally.
All anyone had to do was to badmouth his wrestling show or NASCAR to get his goat. We even badmouthed things he liked whether we liked them or not. We took any kind of a stand that we couldn't care less about just to make him mad.
Another easy way to goad him was by ripping on Democrats. He had no concept why he was aligned with Democrats, in fact he talked like a conservative, but he hated Republicans. He knew who he hated. No matter what you asked him, you couldn't get a straight intelligent answer from him.
This time in the lab I was ready for him. I took some forceps and slipped out the "nothing is ever wrong in the unicorn, butterfly, bluebird, rainbow world" paper fortune from among its unyielding crispy fold. I surgically inserted another fortune of my own composition, that was printed in the same fortune cookie red ink.
"The Lakers will lose tonight."
The Lakers were involved in a best-of-seven series with another team, whom I forget. The Lakers were heavy favorites. Of course, the Lakers were one of Don's teams.
I placed the Laker cookie on the edge of the tray, a little off by itself. It was in the perfect position for someone of low energy to nab.
As expected, Don came into the lab. He did not seem interested in the cookies for some reason. All that effort for nothing.
He was in a loitering mood though, and after leaning on the table near the tray, he eventually decided upon a little snack. Bingo. He grabbed the right cookie.
I figured he would get a little sore at being punked, which was of course, the objective. Then he would give me the business, and I could laugh at his drama and tell everyone about the ploy.
He opened the cookie and read the fortune. His eyes got as big as half-dollars. He started choking on the crispy treat. I was waiting for him to start yelling at me.
Instead, he was actually taking the fortune to heart. Given his tendencies, I shouldn't have expected anything different.
"Is something wrong, Don?"
He read the fortune again to himself in astonishment. "Hmmm. . .That must be the first sports fortune I have seen."
This was way better than expected. He was seriously worried over the cookie, and the night's game.
Since the ruse was not over, I had to go along with it until its conclusion, as did everyone else who knew about it.
Don's arch-nemesis, Willie, was telling him that he also went into the lab and got a fortune cookie. Willie said the cookie read that another one of Don's teams was going to lose. Willie said Don was really squirming, and did not respond.
I feared Willie's greedy overplaying the ploy would ruin the whole thing, but it seemed there was no limit to Don's gullibility.
As it turned out, strangely enough, the Lakers did lose that game. In fact, they lost four in a row and lost the series they were supposed to win. It almost caused us to take pause. . . okay, not really.
Don feared the innocent looking cookies with their sinister reality altering fortunes within, and passed on eating them for quite awhile after that. But even his refusals were in a dramatic fearful fashion, which also provided bonus fun. So I kept up the warnings of caution.
Surreal: During my years I was exposed to quite a bit of food science. But it seemed wrong to me when very good cooks would ask me questions about food, such as shelf life or heat penetration. I have been able to answer their questions. It's just good that they don't ask me to inspect their kitchen. I'm certain they wouldn't like it. I have taken up cooking myself and am passable at it.