FortuneKookie Collection

People who keep their fortune cookie fortunes have been turning to a new web site, FortuneKookie.com, where they can save their fortunes and share them with friends. Some of the fortunes people have submitted are not the typical you-will-get-rich predictions. In fact, some are backward looking. "What you ate was not chicken," one stated. Perhaps that person should have opened his fortune cookie before lunch. Some pose existential questions: "If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is it naked or homeless?"

Others appear to have been written by the Chinese restaurant itself: "Your fortune said you need to make a donation. Give it to the chef."

FortuneKookie.com was created by Craig Robertson and Timothy Laurent. The little slips of paper that fortunes come on were always falling out of our wallets or getting lost in the kitchen junk drawer, so we decided to create a site where we and other fortune cookie fans could electronically save our fortunes. It costs nothing and is easy to use. Fortunes can be submitted from a computer or mobile device, such as a cell phone or Blackberry. We also have a Facebook application. Apparently there's a niche for the service, because people have been flocking to the site. One person posted this banal fortune: "You will buy a nice pair of slacks."

The person who posted this one must have felt better after reading the admonition: "Don't Panic!"

Someone else was surely disappointed when he opened his cookie only to find this message, "The fortune you seek is in another cookie..." A racket, perhaps, to sell more cookies?

But some cookies contain the kind of comforting, ancient wisdom one expects from a fortune cookie: "Don't worry about the world coming to an end. It's already tomorrow in Australia."

Written and Approved by:

The FortuneKookie Crew