Fortunes By Even Steven

After Hick forced me to eat at a Chinese buffet upon leaving the funeral home Saturday night, the waitress (I use the term loosely, because Dominatrix/Charwoman was a more suiting title) brought us the little black tray of two fortune cookies and barked, "Thank you!" with a scowl. Not a people-pleaser was that one.

I noticed that Hick had dropped the torn-off pink edge of his Sweet N Low packet (not to be confused with Skinny and Sweet, with a label shockingly similar to rat poison, from the movie 9 to 5) on the floor as we were leaving.

"Oops! You dropped part of your Sweet N Low wrapper."

Hick walked past it to join me on the way to the door.

"You didn't pick it up."

"Nah. She can get it when she sweeps. I ain't helpin' her."

True, that. Hick didn't help her with the tip, leaving $3, one of them being in quarters, on a $24 bill. Even though it was a buffet, and she cleared the plates off our table twice. Okay. The last one seemed more like an effort to make us get the Not-Heaven out. Especially when she barked, "You done with that?" at me the second I laid my silverware across the plate and pushed it away. Almost made we want to shout, "Ma'am yes ma'am!"

Anyhoo...after our dominatrix waitress tossed her cookies on our table, Hick had proffered me the tray with two fortune cookies, and I selected one that I thought was meant just for me.

You will step on the soil of many countries.

"Heh, heh! I must have gotten your fortune. No way is that mine! I hate to travel!"

Let the record show that Hick had just been discussing that very fact with my cousin at the funeral home less than an hour previous. About how I didn't even want to travel over to Bill-Paying Town to a Chinese buffet.

"Yeah. That's definitely not yours! Let's see what mine says. HA HA! I have yours!"

All things are difficult before they are easy.

"All things are difficult AFTER they're easy, too! ALL things are difficult for me!"

"Don't I know it! That's you to a T."

I think Even Steven was funnin' with us.