One year ago exactly, my work catered in chinese food for lunch during a particularly busy week. So naturally, after we all scraped our plates clean of every sort of wonton, eggroll and fried rice available (don’t judge, it was pre-Dragon Lady times) we moved on to the next fried event. Fortune cookies.

A few of us sitting at the big long table in the office decided to go around and read our fortunes out loud. Fortunes promising new friends, revelations of deep secrets, and unexpected riches were all read. And then it came to me.

“Next year, your greatest wish will come true.”

After just coming off of two early miscarriages, I knew all too well what that greatest wish was. And being in the two week wait at the time, I immediately went ape shit inside my brain. What the fuck, fortune cookie?!! I can’t be pregnant this year??!! There’s still 3 weeks left!!!! Why do you have to ruin my life?!!!!

I calmed down a little when my brain quickly rationalized that I could still get knocked up in 2014, but that the birth itself would be this greatest wish thing, which, of course, wouldn’t happen until 2015.

Everyone around the table oohhed and aahhed, speculating as to what my greatest wish might be. Having just gotten married 7 months before and then having promptly moved in to a big new house right after that, there weren’t too many options left to guess. The ladies all eyed me knowingly, if only they actually knew. And the guys all demanded that I tell them what my greatest wish was. So I had to come up with something quick.

“To meet Fred Savage, of course”

Why on earth I chose these words, I have no idea. Maybe because I’d had a dream a few nights before in which Fred Savage broke into my house to bake me a cake. And yes, it was glorious. But the words came out and successfully diverted the conversation to a discussion about why The Wonder Years was the best show ever  and then eventually to a sing-off of the greatest sitcom theme songs of all time.

I’ve had a fair share of fortune cookies in my time. And I usually forget the fortunes. But this one, I remembered. Not only did I remember it, I believed it. 100%. This fortune was just for me. It’s like it knew me and could stare deep into my soul. But not like in a pervy way. And it probably even rewrote itself to say those words exactly the moment it touched my hands.

I mean, hell, at that point no doctor had been able to give me any reason as to why I kept miscarrying and I had nothing else to go off of. So why not trust the the mystic chinese proverbs developed in a factory in Michigan and then stuffed into a sugary piece of tasteless nothing. Why the hell not?

This fortune spoke truth. And so I believed. 2015 would be the year. My greatest wish would come true.

Turns out, that fortune cookie didn’t know shit. Because here I am, on the backside of 2015 NOT knocked up or anywhere close to giving birth. And I didn’t even meet Fred Savage.

What the hell, fortune? I thought we had a thing where we trusted each other, believed in each other and could stare silently at each other for long periods without things getting all weird and stuff.

Turns out, you were wrong all the time. Unless by “greatest wish” you were referring to the opportunity to re-grout our shower floor. And in that case, you were super super correct.