Twenty-two-year-old Megan Pierce went out for Chinese food with a group of friends last Tuesday evening. Crowded into a booth at South Tampa eatery Kimono's ("Asian Cuisine, and Dim Sum"), Pierce and six friends dined leisurely on vegetarian egg rolls, sesame portabello, General Tso's Tofu and various other meatless dishes. Over the course of the meal, conversation ranged from their usual favorite topics — music, gossip, movies, websites — to current events such as the war in Iraq.
Though the discussion occasionally turned serious, there was generally much more mirth than issue-related discourse. Pierce and a core of friends have been observing a Tuesday-night ritual of eating out for several months now, selecting a different ethnic restaurant each week. While participants have dropped in and out, she and three or four dedicated epicureans have tried to keep the outings a fun, light-hearted good time.
Last week, however, the laughter abruptly stopped when the check was delivered to the table, along with the customary fortune cookies.
"You're not supposed to read your fortune aloud, it's bad luck or something," says Pierce. "But it's not like we believe in that, or anything. We decided to have a little fun with it, you know? Read them all and see how well they fit each person."
Pierce's 21-year-old roommate Carolyn "Cal" Smith, a receptionist for a medical staffing firm, went first. The little piece of paper in her dessert didn't read too differently from the usual fortune-cookie aphorisms: "It is better to have a crazy friend, than to be the crazy friend." Everyone got a kick out of it.
Local musician Phil Crawford went next, however, and his fortune was far and away the strangest one any of them could remember getting.
It said, "You never would have enjoyed this meal, had your mother aborted you."
Shock gave way first to bewilderment, then to offense.
"It was so completely … inappropriate," says Pierce. "We were blown away. Frieda [Larson] made a weak joke, but everybody else got really angry really quick."
The group decided to read all of their respective fortunes before drawing any further conclusions. As they did so, though, a disturbing pattern emerged. Pierce has brought the tiny slips with her today, and lays them out on the table. On one side are the standard lucky lottery number combinations. But the text on the other side comprises anything but the familiarly vague prognostications and adages.
"Tomorrow will bring miracles large and small — as only Jesus can make them."
"You will feel compelled to fight for the prosperity of your heritage."
"A legally registered firearm will someday save your life."
"What does left have in common with welfare? It's not right."
"Stopping at petting is like getting a flu shot — it will keep you from having to go to the doctor later."
"Am I crazy?" Pierce asks.
It doesn't seem so. It's not difficult to relate each and every one of these tidbits to the various ideologies of the religious right. And for every person at Pierce's table to receive a fortune with such a slant defies even the most astronomical odds of coincidence.
After the party finished reading their fortunes, they summoned a server and asked to speak to a manager. Kimono's night manager Douglas Williams came to the table. Words were exchanged, polite at first but increasingly heated. Pierce admits that a few of her more politically outspoken dining companions said some things that bordered on abuse.
"Two of the guys said that it was a conspiracy, that I was a hate-monger, that the restaurant's owners had no right to impose their political beliefs on their customers. They were yelling and cursing," confirms Williams, who owns no stake in Kimono's. "I explained to them that we bought the fortune cookies from a distributor, that they're individually packaged, and that we couldn't possibly have anything to do with what's inside them."
Williams eventually told the party that they wouldn't have to pay for the meal, as long as they left immediately; he says he did so to avoid a serious altercation.
"They wanted to kick my ass," says Williams.
He adds that this wasn't the first time it's happened. Sporadic complaints began three weeks ago, when the logo on the restaurant's shipments of fortune cookies changed from Lucky Pastries to Smithfield American Industries, Inc. Williams doesn't know why Kimono's began receiving cookies from a different company, explaining that the food distributor and wholesale price haven't changed.
"It happens all the time," he says.
Smithfield American Industries is a subsidiary of The News Corporation, Ltd., the media conglomerate owned by business magnate Rupert Murdoch. Oddly, like most of News Corp.'s holdings, the company is designated as a media entity rather than a food concern.
Smithfield public relations officer Ken Shillman denies that the business has any political agenda whatsoever.
"We have writers who come up with the fortunes," he says. "Somebody OKs them, and they go into production."
(When read the fortunes received by the Pierce party, Shillman excused himself, explaining that he had another call. He never resumed the interview, and when contacted several days later and reminded of his actions, replied, "no, I didn't," and excused himself, saying he had to go to the bathroom.)
The food distributor that handles Kimono's, FoodWagon, confirms that it recently signed a contract with Smithfield, and delivers its fortune cookies to restaurants in 37 markets nationwide. It's a figure that, when related to Megan Pierce, makes her shudder.
"God, I hope nobody has to deal with what we did," she says. "Nobody wants to have to think when they go out to eat."
Contact staff troublemaker and admitted compulsive liar Scott Harrell at 813-739-4856, or scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2004.