Saturday, February 25, 2006

Militant Girl Scouts

Well, it's that time of year again...


What will it be? Samoas, Do-si-dos, or Thin Mints?

I must report that the Girl Scouts of America have descended upon the University of Arizona like a swarm of locusts during the past three days. There must have been 50 young Brownies and Girl Scouts hawking their carb-ladened treats in the center lawn area of the university, set up in no less than EIGHT cookie-selling tents.

WTF?!?!? OK, I was a Girl Scout. When the cookie time of year rolled around, I dreaded it because it meant that I had to walk around my tiny neighborhood of about 12 houses and awkwardly ring the bell and force people to buy something they didn't necessarily want from me. (I've never enjoyed sales.) Of course, the goal was to sell as many cookies as possible for... THE PRIZES IN THE CATALOG! I always aspired to win the boom box or the mini-television or the Sony Walkman. However, my paltry sales generally qualified me for nothing more than the Girl Scouts bookmark set or the ballpoint pen and pencil kit. My parents were NOT taking my cookie sales sheet to work and selling them for me as appears to be the case today -- oh no, I was learning how to market and sell those cookies myself. And yes, I sucked totally and paid the price. There was certainly no sitting outside Safeway with my mom, there was no setting up in mall parking lots, and there was certainly no tent on a university campus. I know, there are a lot of child molesters out there today so it's not safe to go door-to-door anymore, but it just seems so easy now.

How have I become bitter about Girl Scout cookies? Perhaps it is the reprimand I received yesterday from a militant Brownie, who was positioned smack-dab in the middle of the sidewalk as I tried to maneuver my bicycle around her, as she shouted at me to buy her cookies. I had just come from the rec center pool, my hair was standing up in 10 directions from the chlorinated water, and I was trying to scurry through the middle of campus en route to my apartment to take a shower. Bitchy Brownie decides to step forward and shout at me, "Do you wanna buy some cookies?" Feeling as though it would be rude to ignore the child, I yelled out to her, "I already bought some yesterday," in a light-hearted tone, right at the same time she was ending her sales pitch with the word "...cookies?" Had I waited for her to finish her line, I would have been about 10 yards down the pavement (as I was riding quite quickly on my bike), which clearly would not have allowed me to give her an answer. As a result of this small overlap in our verbal exchange, this little nazi screams out at me, "It's rude to talk when other people are speaking!" My mouth dropped in appalling shock... was I just chastised by a Brownie? Should I turn back and confront this little moralistic witch or should I just keep riding? But then I thought, maybe her parents are sitting there and that could get ugly. And honestly, what the hell am I thinking?... the kid is only about 7 years old, and I am a lot more powerful than her. I don't want to scar her early memories. Although a u-turn on my bike followed by a lengthy evil-eye staredown might have been appropriate...


"Buy some cookies from me, bitch, or face my moralistic wrath!"

Cheers!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seriously, that is the FUNNIEST thing I have read in a long time - Girl Scout cookies are evil and the Girls Scouts that sell them minions of the dark lord.