The all-consuming, consume-them-all cookie

Girl Scout Cookie sales are still going strong. And by that I mean that they have taken up my last three Saturdays and a good part of the days before and between. On Valentine's Day I had to go pick them up from the depot, drop roughly 120 cases off at my co-leader's house (ha, ha!), and unload the remaining 50 at my house. Then I had to wait for parents to come pick them up, which resulted in one of the moms nearly getting towed from in front of my house by the devil of all towing companies, hired for whatever bizarre reason by our HOA to do "patrol towing". But that's another story. Back to cookies.


We delivered as many of the girls' cookies as we could, even spending an afternoon at Chris's office, the same way we did nearly a month before when we took orders. Many of his co-workers love us for supplying them with their version of heroin. We took some to church with us that Wednesday to deliver to Vicki's Activity Days leaders, and it was a good thing I brought some extras with me, because the sight of those colorful boxes produced 18 more sales. My co-leader doesn't understand why we don't just set up a booth after church one Sunday, no matter how many times I try to explain that that just wouldn't go over well. She thinks we're missing out on an abundance of sales. She's probably right.

I have spent a total of eight hours over the last two Saturdays standing in both Fabric Depot and Fred Meyer, encouraging my daughters to hawk their cookies to poor, unsuspecting shoppers who left their houses with the intention of bringing home a couple yards of quilter's cotton or a carton of ice cream and a case of beer, and found themselves unable to resist the unbearable cuteness of little girls in brown vests. Who could possibly resist that? Oh, yeah, we made a killing - an average of 60 boxes in each 2-hour block of time. Plus this experience always helps to renew my faith in mankind. With the economy like it is, we were expecting a decrease in sales, but we haven't really seen that. If anything, we're doing better this year than last. And people seem more apt to make donations to the troop, which, to be perfectly honest, is almost better than actually buying the cookies. See, we as a troop get $0.65 per box, but if you just hand the girls a dollar, it saves you $3 (cookies cost $4/box) and gives us an additional $0.35. Of course, then the girls don't get any closer to their sales goals, so it's kind of a give-and-take thing. But people are generous, that's what I've learned.


I have been terribly proud of the fact that, up until this weekend, I had only eaten three cookies. This, I will grudgingly admit, was due to no particular willpower of my own, but rather to the fact that we hadn't actually bought ourselves any cookies yet. Vicki and Lexi each bought two boxes (well, Vicki bought two and Lexi bought one and had one bought for her by a cute little old man at Fred Meyer who bought them for her), and they shared a little bit, but that's all I'd had. Until yesterday. I finally bought some, and now that the boxes are open there's no turning back. I more than doubled my consumption in less than 10 minutes. It's like those old Pringles commercials (these may have only been on in England): Once you pop, you can't stop! They're sooooo good. Soooooo irresistible. They're calling me as we speak (write? read? you know what I mean.) The only good thing I can say is that I bought two boxes of Tagalongs and then had to give them back to the troop because we were running out and couldn't order more before our sales this weekend. When I get those back, well, let's just say they won't last long, and neither will my figure (such as it is.)

Cookies are available through March 14. Get them while you still can!