I buy Girls Scout cookies from Girl Scouts!

Because they're made from real Girl Scouts!

The title sums it up. I buy Girl Scout cookies from Girl Scouts. I don't buy them from their parents peddling their daughter's products at work. Do people really coddle their kids this much these days? Or are kids just too damn lazy to go out and peddle themselves?

This all started last week, when a mysterious piece of paper showed up in the office. A piece of paper that was a sign up for girl scout cookies. Sign your name, what you want, and the cookies will be brought in to work in March. Wah-lah! I scoffed at the mere existence of such a list. "How impersonal!" I said to myself. If this parent was trying to sell their kid's cookies, they weren't doing a very good job at it. At least have the cajones to ask me in person.

Well eventually they did ask me in person, and my response was a polite "No, thank you." What I should have said was "Why on God's green earth would I buy a GIRL SCOUT cookie from what is clearly, a non Girl Scout?!"

Now, I actually like this person very much, and she has on many occasions asked me to buy stuff to support her endeavors, which I have been perfectly ok with. But selling your kid's cookies for them? Nah-ah. I won’t support that.

I like it when I go to Wal-mart, or the grocery store, and a troop of scouts has a table set up outside stacked with cookies (I like instant gratification). As I make my way into the store, a girl asks if I'd like to buy a box. 100% of the time, I will say yes, and fork over my hard earned 20 bucks to support the Girl Scouts of America (then I will pig out on frozen thin mints for a week).

So are the kids at fault here? Do they ask Mommy and Daddy to see if they can sell cookies at work? More than likely, yes. I have been there, selling fundraiser stuff. And I do distinctly remember asking if my Mom could sell some stuff at work. So call me a hypocrite. I actually think I grew up and formed an opinion, but whatever. Kids want to be the best, they see an opportunity in their parent's workplace. But where'd they get that idea from? My guess is the Girl Scouts of America.

Picture it: You are a Girl Scout. You just joined. You are excited to sell some cookies. You sit down with your scout masters (whatever they are called), and they lay out the plan for you to sell cookies. They offer suggestions to help sell them, tips and advice. And among the many ideas they have to sell the cookies and make money is to give a form to your parents and get them to sell some at work. Obviously I am not, nor have ever been a girl scout, but you don't need a degree in Rocket Surgery to know they push the kids and the parents into selling them at work.

So what do you know? It's the association itself creating this tomfoolery. The girls are blameless, they're children, they just want to sell the most so they can take that canoe trip or whatever. It is the parents and the organization that should know better.

My point is that the cookies are meant to be sold by children, to support a children's organization. I understand you want to help your kids, and get them that prize for selling the most cookies. It is a natural thing to want to do that, but this is something I will mark the line on very clearly:

Girls in the girl scouts, sell Girl Scout cookies. Period.

That being said, I can't wait to get my hand on some boxes, they are soooooo good.

This is the story that started this.

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