A fun family trip quickly turned into a nasty nightmare for the Bryant family of upstate Carmel, New York, after several lewd “novelty” fortune cookies were mistakenly placed on their table.
Joy and Matt Bryant planned a day of fun for Joy’s parents, Eloise and Earl, and for their 6-year-old daughter, Angela.
“It was Mum and Dad’s anniversary. They really wanted to visit the Guggenheim [Museum]. Mom studied art way back when, and said she practically used to live there.”
“So this man was handing out restaurant coupons,” said Earl. “It was for a Chinese place, and you really can’t get halfway decent Chinese up by us, so I took one. We go down the street and the place looked nice, so in we went!”
“The food and the service were good,” he added.
“I had the orange chicken!” said Angela. “And then I needed another fortune cookie because I dropped my fortune cookie on the floor. It said ‘You will have a surprise very soon.’”
The fortune proved to be chillingly accurate.
Waiter Eddie Tan explained what happened next.
“The girl was upset because she dropped her cookie, so I go back and grab a handful and put them on her plate, and she was very happy. I go back to the kitchen and the mother screams and the father yells ‘Where’s the boss? Where’s the boss?’”
Tan had mistakenly taken a handful of “adult” novelty fortunes meant only for the staff to see. The smutty fortunes were brought in earlier as a ‘gag’ gift to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday.
Joy explained, “My 6-year-old turns to me and asks, ‘Mommy, what’s a r–job? It says ‘Tonight you will get a r–job.’ Well, I screamed out loud and my husband told my daughter never to say that word again. Then we read the rest of them.”
“The next one said, ‘You will eat some p—- tonight,’” she continued. “And the one after that said ‘You need to get a rusty trombone.’ I was horrified! At church we got a pamphlet with every dirty word you can think of to teach your children not to say – that’s how I knew what every word meant,” she quickly explained.
Joy’s father didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
“Matt was getting the manager,” said Earl, “so I took a look at the other ones and they sounded okay to me. I don’t know what an ‘Angry Dragon’ is, but I figured it was something about the Chinese New Year. I know what a ‘piledriver’ is because I used to do that all the time with my guys.” Earl is a retired telephone company foreman.
“Another one said ‘Do you like hobknocking?’ Maybe I do. Beats me. The last one I read said ‘Give me a blumpkin!’ That sounded like a fancy dessert, and since we only got the orange slices and fortune cookies, I really wanted to get a blumpkin! Then the waiter took them away.”
“I raised Holy Hell!” Said Matt. “The waiter explained what happened and said they wouldn’t charge us for lunch, like that was going to make everything all right! I told him I was going to sue them and the fortune cookie company for emotional distress. Joy still cries about how they ruined her parents’ anniversary. She was crying and we never even made it to the museum! We were so upset, we let Angela go stay with her grandparents for a few days. We both just stayed at home…In bed. Er, reading our Bibles. Yeah, our Bibles. That’s it.”
The case of Bryant v. Hung’s is expected to be settled out of court.