Graph Theory of Chinese Food
Explanation
The Joke
A man sits at a table with Chinese takeout food, exasperated: "Oh come on! Three?! I got ONE entree and a soup!" He is upset about receiving three fortune cookies with his meal for one person. Below this scene is a graph with "Shame" on the Y-axis and "Number of Fortune Cookies That Came With Your Meal for One" on the X-axis. The graph shows shame increasing exponentially as the number of fortune cookies increases.
The Humor
The joke plays on the fact that Chinese restaurants typically include one fortune cookie per person. When you order takeout for just yourself and receive multiple fortune cookies, it implies the restaurant assumed the food was for multiple people -- revealing just how much food you ordered for one person. The more fortune cookies included, the more people the restaurant assumed were eating, and therefore the more embarrassing the quantity of food you ordered becomes.
The exponential curve of shame is the key comedic element: receiving one fortune cookie is neutral (the restaurant correctly guessed you're alone), but each additional cookie is increasingly devastating because it means the restaurant thought your solo meal was meant for two, three, or more people. The man's outrage at receiving three cookies -- meaning the restaurant thought his "one entree and a soup" was for three people -- is both funny and relatable to anyone who has ever over-ordered takeout.
The title "Graph Theory of Chinese Food" humorously applies the mathematical field of graph theory to this mundane social observation, though the graph shown is simply a standard X-Y plot rather than anything related to actual graph theory (which deals with networks of nodes and edges).
References
- Graph Theory: A branch of mathematics studying graphs as structures made up of vertices (nodes) connected by edges. The title is a pun -- the comic uses a simple graph (chart) rather than anything from the mathematical field of graph theory.
- Fortune Cookies: Crispy cookies containing paper slips with messages, traditionally served with Chinese-American restaurant meals, typically one per diner.