On my way to my office the other day, I got stopped by one of our fine warehouse employees with a magical piece of paper in his hand. It seems that his 6-year-old is getting into scouting, and it’s that time of year when the cookies get sold. Does the concept of girl scout cookies seem odd to anyone else? I guess it’s supposed to teach girls about business and how important it is to meet your neighbors by knocking on their doors and tempting them with baked goods. (But not the green house with the shades pulled down and the weeds in the lawn. Never the green house, kids.) But really, giving your dad the form and having him accost his co-workers, what does that teach you?
I also have to admit that I have a little bitterness about the whole girl scout thing. That’s because I have a natural inclination towards spending time in the outdoors, collecting badges, wearing brown, and closing the deal on a huge cookie sale. But when it came time for me to sign up for scouting in first grade, there was a hitch. There was no line to be had. For whatever terrible reason, no mothers of the girls in my class would volunteer to be our troop leader, and therefore there was no scouting for us. This happened year after year after year. In school, I’d see the younger girls all happy with their sashes and badges and the older girls all smug with the knowledge that they were going camping and on their way to a fulfilling life including marriage to an Eagle Scout and a career in needlepoint, quilting, or beadmaking, depending on which badge they earned. But for me, there would be no uniform, to badges, no reason to leave class early every second and fourth Tuesday of the month.
When my little sister came up through the ranks, her grade had a mother who was ready, willing, and able to be in charge of their troop. I think that mother wanted to be in scouting as badly as I did. Let me just iterate how deeply unfair this was. My sister and I are similar in some ways, and very different in others. For instance, she hates the outdoors, she doesn’t care about collecting badges, she wears bright colors, and she wasn’t driven to be the best darn little cookie salesperson on the block. Not that she didn’t try, it’s just that she didn’t want it badly enough to gain the competitive edge by sabotaging her fellow troop members. (I totally would have.) Every time she came home from a troop meeting with a new badge and just threw her sash on the kitchen table like it was no big deal, I died a little inside. I think I even sewed some of the badges on for her because I got a vicarious thrill, and also to prove that I was a better seamstress and therefore more qualified to be a scout.
I eventually grew to tolerate the situation for two reasons. One was that while my mother was legitimately too busy to be our troop mother, she did have enough time to organize the cookie drive. That meant that all the cookies sold by SisterAlyson’s troop were delivered to our house and distributed from there. Our dining room held cases of Trefoils, Tagalongs, Thin Mints and the ever beloved Samoa. And man, did it smell good in there. I also given the job to organize each girl’s order, which made me feel like I was contributing to the cause in some small way.
The other thing was that I started going to summer camp every year where I spent seven weeks earning beads (like a badge, but made of wood and worn like a necklace) for doing things like archery, water skiing, swimming, windsurfing, arts & crafts and street hockey, which are so much cooler than needlepoint. Also, I got to wear lots of navy blue and khaki, and I even got to sleep in real tents, which the girl scouts didn’t get to do until their late teens. Sadly, camp afforded me no opportunity to sell cookies, so I’d have to wait until that magical time in the late winter when my sister’s girl scout troop became active again and I could participate in scouting in some small way.
If you’re like me, and you hate having to wait all year for cookies that are so much better than anything you can buy in a store, here’s a link for you: Make Your Own Girl Scout Cookies. I think you need to have a lot of time and kitchen talent to make these well, but if you’re not lucky enough to work with the parent of a scout or have a mother who will volunteer to be your damn leader, and you crave coconut caramel chocolate goodness, this is the site for you. Now pardon me while I sit tight and wait for my Thin Mints to arrive.
