Unfortunate Cookie?

He sort of looked down, defeated, and handed the cookie to me. I pulled him over for a hug and a snuggle and told him it was OK and that he could have it. He opened the cookie up and handed me the fortune from inside.
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Blank paper in broken fortune cookie on wooden table
Blank paper in broken fortune cookie on wooden table

I wasn't home for dinner last night.

Sure, there are perks to being an entrepreneur and working on your own startup as well as working on someone else's, but it also means that you hustle when you have to hustle. And that means missing dinner a couple of times a week because of meetings or events or whatnot.

I know what happened when I left for the meeting. My wife said to the kids, "Daddy isn't home for dinner tonight, so you guys pick what you want to eat." I know exactly what the kids said, too. The older two (ages 8 and 5) shouted, "Dragon Palace!!!" at the same time while the youngest (19 months) just screamed, excited to be making a noise with the other two. They always ask for Dragon Palace. I love Dragon Palace too but, alas, they got it without me. At least my wife saved me a fortune cookie.

This morning, I went and sat down at the table to eat breakfast and I saw my 5-year-old son trying to hide something from me in the kitchen. I asked what he was doing and he showed me that he had a leftover fortune cookie from the night before. He already had it out of the wrapper and was about to dig in. I asked him why he thought is was OK to take the cookie that Mommy had saved for me.

He said, "I just wanted it."

I said to him, "Son, just because you want something doesn't mean you can just take it."

He sort of looked down, defeated, and handed the cookie to me. I pulled him over for a hug and a snuggle and told him it was OK and that he could have it. He opened it up, handed me the fortune from inside and while nomming on the cookie and asked me to read the fortune...

Touché, life. You have won this day.


Hank Hanna is co-founder of PropLocker.com and The Pitch Deck startup investing podcast. He doesn't typically write about parenting and children, but he would like to do so more often.

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