It’s that time of year again, Girl Scout cookie time. This year, like the last 10 or so, I resisted the temptation to order cookies through friends peddling for their daughters through facebook or on the playground. I don’t even have any nieces pitching to me this year. No, this year I thought I was going to be cookieless in the end. Yesterday afternoon, they got me again at the grocery store, like they have for the past few years. I actually walked past them and said, “no thanks” to their request and ultimately turned around, re-entered the store and picked out two boxes with my sons’ help.
Why did I do this? Why did they have to power to make me turn around and come back for the cookies? Because they were older Girl Scouts. A trio of girls in their mid teens. As every year, I felt compelled to tell them why I came back and why I was buying from them versus a table full of cute 8 year olds. “You see,” I said as I launched into my tale. “I was a Girl Scout. When I was in high school, I sold more cookies than anyone in the Dogwood Trails Girl Scout Council. I sold door to door in my neighborhoods, in the college dormitories of my home town, to all the fraternities and sororities and my parents took the gamble to order extra boxes and I set up a table like yours to sell at the dining halls on campus.” Next I tend to ask them what they are planning to do with the credit they are earning by selling the cookies. Their eyes glazed over and the mom sitting with them took on the conversation from here on out. They just didn’t seem to interested in all my stories of cookie sales from the olden days. They thought maybe they’d be using the money to go to camp this summer. “Oh, that’s great!” I replied. “I used my sales credits to pay my way to go on a ‘wider opportunity’ about photography at the Girl Scout’s National Center West in Ten Sleep Wyoming. In fact,” I continued unwaivered by their lack of interest, “I pursued a career in photography in some part due to my experiences at that camp. And, believe it or not,” (we’re in the home stretch now) “I am still friends with one of the girls I met there 24 years ago.”
*yawn*
By this time my boys are about to break into the box of cookies themselves. I say my thank you’s, good lucks and good byes and head home feeling a little let down. I do this every year. Every year I support some older girls selling cookies. Every year I tell them stories of my selling past and my adventures with camp. Every year I eat my cookies and wonder why they’re not as excited, focused and driven as I was when I sold cookies. Every year I think about becoming a Girl Scout Leader even though I have no daughters.
In writing this blog, I realized as I was looking for links that what used to be known as a ‘wider opportunity’ is now called ‘Studio 2B: destinations’ Maybe that’s why they always look at me with a lost look in their eyes.
Ah well, enough nostalgia for one day. Patty Jiminez, I hope you are reading this. Here’s some photos from our time together on top of the mountain. I’m so glad we are still friends. That’s me on the right opening the can of Spam.
AAH, Stacie, you forgot to tell about how they only cost 45 cents and then when they went up to 5o cents, everyone thought that was terrible. Keep telling the story…Karen tells about standing in the cold outside the shopette, with one box of cookies left on her table and how her mother won’t let her go home until they were all gone….selling it, and then putting one more box on the table after that purchaser left.