i firmly believe that one must eat the fortune cookie _before_ reading the fortune, or else the fortune won't truly belong to one.annap, my mom's a believer in karma as well, only she calls it "the cosmic scorecard".
when i was in hawaii, a sign at the state park cautioned that if i took one of the volcanic rocks away from the islands, pele (the goddess of the volcanos) would curse me with bad luck until her rock was returned. i took one anyway and gave it to a friend (i told her about the curse and said she could make her own decision about whether or not to send it back), and if you ask me, her life has been hell ever since.