This one was of the best kind! A girl scout selling girl scout cookies. I will buy girl scout cookies any time. I mean, I have not sought out girl scout cookies in quite a few years. Sweet stuff hangs around here forever so why bother. But I will not turn down a girl scout selling girl scout cookies at my door.

She was very nicely set up with a fancy wagon. She was with her dad! Who stayed down on the sidewalk and gently coached her (say thank you, etc.). And their dog, who also stayed on the sidewalk with dad and was leashed, a constant source of contention here on The Planet Ann Arbor. THEY WERE BOTH MASKED! I saw them coming and sussed what they were all about so you know I slapped on a KN95 before answering the door. Actually I had seen them in the neighborhood when I returned from taking Cygnus out for a slow ride on the Pothole Asteroid north of town but didn’t know what was in the wagon.

I bought two boxes. Samoas and whatever is new this year. She proactively apologized PROFUSELY that there were no Thin Mints. That was okay. I was really just buying them to be nice and support the girl scouts. (I didn’t tell her that.)

My kids were in girl scouts and one year I bit the bullet and “ran” the cookie sale for our middle school troop. What could go wrong? Don’t we just send home order forms with the kids or maybe set up a booth at one of the grocery stores or something? And then I do some bookkeeping? On my computer, roight? Ohhhh no. This girl scout leader had multiple places set up on different days and at least one of them involved navigating the UMich campus. In the POC… … … This was all waaaaay out of my introverted comfort zone. Note to self. Always ask for the details of what you are getting yourself into.

To make matters worse, one of the dads was an uber sales-type guy and he was there at ONE of the booths trying to provide instruction on how to sell stuff. I think I remember him pulling money out of his shoe at one point? He was cheerful but WHAT? I was thinking something like why isn’t HEEEE running the cookie sale? Alas. I knew the answer. His daughter and a friend had moved to our troop from another troop and I don’t remember all the ugly details now but his daughter had cancer and died a couple years later. Knowing what he was dealing with, I just sucked it up and did the best I could.

I was not a girl scout myself. I was a camp fire girl because that’s what we had in Sault Ste. Siberia. Being meeeee, I was mostly interested in earning beads, which are like girl scout badges. I didn’t realize until I had my own girl scouts that most kids just need a safe place to have fun and talk and whatever. Sometimes they get interested in whatever activity or field trip is going on, sometimes not. I was often annoyed about this back in those days but I think I understand it better now.

But still, there’s a reason I work with computers, not kids 🐽

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 5th, 2022 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.