Dear Girl Scouts,

In the immortal words of Phyllis Nefler and her rag tag band of spoiled rich girls, “It’s cookie time.”

(from flickr user kayak49)

I know you’re out there. And I know you have cookies. Please find me.

Here’s the thing, ladies.  I have to take this new medication that makes me feel sick when I eat sugar; thus,  I have a new policy about buying cookies, candy, ice cream,  or sweets of any kind.

My new policy: Don’t buy anything with sugar in it.

This policy, by the way, is not one that I like. There are these new snack cakes with cream in the middle and chocolate fondant on the bottom and golden fluffy cake in between and I just know that it all melts in your mouth…

(from entenmanns.com)

I digress.

But I also live by another policy:  Support organizations and institutions that contributed to my development.  

This means that my high school gets a check every year, my university gets another check, and you door-to-door cookies salespeople get my patronage.

I mean, I basically have to buy cookies from you.  If not for the Girl Scouts of America, I would not know how to do the following things:
– Fix a toilet that is making strange noises
– Make a lanyard out of vinyl string
– Ride a horse (honestly, I could have done without this)
– Take off a bra without removing my shirt
– Use corn husks to make a Christmas ornament
– Know all the words to Madonna’s “Vogue”
– Dance the box step
– Sew culottes for my uniform (actually, I failed at this project.)

So you see, I owe much of my current skill set to my glory days as a Girl Scout.   It would be bad karma for me to ignore your eager pleas to buy some cookies. Insulin resistance be damned! I will support the good cause!

Plus, I feel your pain. During my scouting days, I dreaded cookie season like a flu shot.  While the other girls in my troop poured over the list of prizes for cookies sold and returned to meetings with order forms filled from top to bottom, I squeaked by each spring with the bare number of boxes sold to win a patch.  My parents bought most of them.  I watched in self-loathing as my smug friends giggled over their Girl Scout glitter pens and tried on fluorescent t-shirts.

(from nataliedee.com)

My quiet developing neighborhood handicapped my ability to sell, and my parents would not take the order form to work with them.  They said they, “didn’t want people to feel pressure,” and I should, “work hard to get what I want.”

Psh.

The agony didn’t end when the cookies arrived for distribution. Oh no.  My troop leaders, thinking they were doing me a favor by giving me an opportunity for more sales, would assign me to grocery store duty. I would sit outside Hi Neighbor Grocery Store in the bitter cold begging every passerby, “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies? Please??”  Even though I grew up in Louisiana, I still remember my fingers feeling numb and my teeth chattering as I struggled to unload my product. In retrospect, it was probably not that cold. 

(from the Associated Press… also, these girls look more organized than I ever was.)

To return to the point… girls, all you have to do is find me and I will be your new favorite customer. I will not be one of those pity buyers that purchases the customary one box of Thin Mints.   I will buy multiple boxes because how can I be expected to choose among Thin Mints, Samoas, Tag Alongs, Do Si Dos, and all the rest? I would sooner pick a favorite episode of The OC.  (You may not know this, but that’s really saying something.)

I look forward to doing business with you!

Cheers,
M