From: KTsBudgie@aol.com
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:59:31 EST
Subject: Submission titled "Fortune Cookie", category Humor

Title: Fortune Cookie
Author: KTsBudgie
Date Completed: October 25, 1998
Email: KTsBudgie@aol.com
Rating: G, lil' bit o' language
Archive: Gossamer, yes.  Elsewhere just ask.  I don't bite.
Spoilers: Sure.  Fine.  Whatever.
Keywords: Humor
Synopsis: Based on a true story.  Scully's fortune confuses her.
Author's Notes: See them at end.
Disclaimer: The Gunmen made me do it.  I'm sorry.  They                
    threatened me with their computer.


Fortune Cookie
by KTsBudgie

     I should have listened to my gut instinct that this day would end
in a bizarre way.  This morning was one of those mornings when
that little inner voice tells me, "Dana, stay in bed.  Today will be
weird."  I would have listened to that voice anytime before I had
met Mulder.  Knowing him, just being around him, I can expect
weird.  I can expect bizarre.  Abnormal.  You name it, I can expect
it.
     But this . . . this was weird bordering on the confusing. 
Everything started off in its usual way.  We were at my apartment
on a Thursday evening, closing up a case that we had to present
before a meeting with Skinner and other pertinent ADs the next
morning.  Normal, run of the mill X-File.  Nothing too fancy there.
     Before we knew it, dinner rolled around and left us in its wake
to cough at the dust left behind.  It was nearly nine o'clock when
my stomach grumbled in protest from the lack of attention.  I only
had to peer up at him for a second before Mulder's hand was
reaching for the phone.
     "I'll order some Chinese takeout.  I found a place that stays open
late *and* delivers," he had said, punching in a number that he
pulled from that rolodex he kept in his brain.
     The food that the Szechuan Cafe serves is good.  That I can not
argue with.  The moo goo gai pan was delicious.  Mulder didn't
even get a chance to try any of it.  I think I polished off that carton
of chicken and veggies in ten minutes.  I distinctly remember
flicking a snow pea at Mulder's head when he made a comment
about me inhaling my food, but, I digress.  This has nothing to do
with the main course.
     While I was chewing on an after dinner egg roll (I highly
recommend them, by the way), Mulder searched the bag for the
fortune cookies.  He had found two, hiding among the soy sauce
and hot mustard packets.  Handing me one, he had told me, "If you
get good lotto numbers, I'm playing them."
     "Whatever, Mulder," I had answered, finishing my egg roll.  I
wiped my fingers, then opened the wrapper the fortune cookie was
in.  Cracking open the cookie, I took out the fortune.
     Mulder read his first.  "'Through persistence, you will achieve
your goals.'  There's hope for me yet, Scully.  What about you?" he
had asked me, happily chewing away on his lemon flavored fortune
cookie.
     Now, I have never, *never* been much to think about these
fortunes before.  I just take them with a grain of salt.  These cookie
manufacturers make millions and millions of these cookies with the
same fortunes.  They really aren't in any way personal.
     Mulder's fit him for once, though.  In a . . . bizarre . . . sort of
way.
     His fortune is not the reason why I'm up at three am, thinking. 
It's because of my fortune.  Now, you have to understand
something: I'm a *very* logical person.  So logical, it's painful
sometimes.  I try to solve everything by using logical steps and
plausible explanations.  But this . . . this defies explanation.
     Do you want to know what my fortune said?  When I cracked
that cookie open, and removed that white slip of paper that surely
had come straight from the depths of Hell, I got more confused
then I've ever been before in my life.  "It tastes good," it said.
     It tastes good.
     What the hell is that supposed to mean?!  Is that even a fortune?
     Mulder accused me of making it up when I told him my fortune. 
I had to actually show it to him before he believed me.  "Weird," he
had said.
     Weird does not even begin to describe it.  What tastes good? 
The cookie?  The Chinese food?  The eggroll?  Life?  Or, wait. 
Maybe the manufacturers are perverts.  No.  I will *not* go down
that road.
     I'm giving myself a headache trying to figure out this damn
thing.  It tastes good.  This is going to bother me for the rest of my
life, you do know that, right?  I never should have eaten that damn
cookie.  No.  Scratch that.  I never should have gotten out of bed
today.  If anyone out there knows how to rewind a day, will they
give me a call?  I could really use the help right now . . . .

finis

Author's Notes: This is based on a true story.  While eating take out
veggie lo mein, I received a fortune that said "It tastes good".  It is
bothering me still, and this was six months ago.  I though inflicting
this on Scully would be interesting.