Thank God We're Past This For Another Year

Girl Scout Cookies ...

A plague unleashed upon humanity each spring. A time that turns mothers and their young girls (actually pretty much the mothers) into combative, competitive, overbearing, cookie pushing hustlers.

During 'the season', it is impossible to walk into a grocery or box store without being besieged by little ones spouting 'would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?'. Every entrance has a table or two, with a pack of the little ones milling around, and their mothers behind the table scowling at anyone who answers 'no, thank you'. Cases and cases of cookies piled up ... competing packs at the doors, each trying to get you to buy their special cookies. Mothers line up the prime selling points months in advance - competition for the coveted front, grocery side door at Walmart is fierce.

Obstensibly, this is supposed to be about fund raising for the Girl Scouts. I have nothing against that at all. What I object to is that it always turns into what every other grade school fund raiser morphs into ... a competition amongst the parents to see whose kid rises to the top of the cookie mountain. I hate grade school fund raising ... just tell me what the actual amount of money the school/group is going to get, and I'll gladly hand that over in cash - much cheaper and easier for me. I hated it while my daughter was doing it ... 'you will sell this much, or else' was the message. Didn't matter how much time it took away from my daughter's actual learning, or how much time it took away from her parent's precious off time. The only thing that mattered was 'meet those quotas'.

Then you have the relatives who have girls selling them. You have to buy from all of them, to keep from hurting feelings. There is always the question of how many boxes is an appropriate order.

So, Girl Scouts ... how much money do you actually make off of each $3.50 box of a dozen cookies? A quarter, maybe? Make you a deal ... I'll give you a roll of quarters if you promise not to shove another box of cookies into my face - ever.

Ok, so I went off the deep end a bit with the sarcasm on this one ... no offense intended to anyone close to me who sells these things.