07-071
The Way the Cookie Crumbles
Yesterday
I walked into my office and found a box of Thin Mints on my desk. Beside them
sat two boxes of Peanut Butter Patties. A school kid excitement engulfed me.
Had it really been a year since the last run of Girl Scout cookies? Ripping
into the Peanut Butter Patties, I had an epiphany. There are no Girl Scouts in
my office.
The
mysterious appearance of these cookies made me think. The last time I saw a
full-fledged, uniformed Girl Scout was 1984, ironic considering in my life I've
spent $61,000 on Girl Scout cookies. The whole cookie thing befuddles me. Who
are these people? After all, there are no Girl Scouts. I know. I asked around.
The
marketing arm behind these cookies is amazing. While the Boy Scouts are sitting
around starting fires with sticks and tying rope into 712 different types of
knots, the Girl Scouts are building an empire. Any small town Main Street
displays evidence of the foot soldiers employed to deliver their goods. Women
in minivans double park, dropping off cases of caloric heaven. They move like
hummingbirds, making the UPS guy look sloth-like. They convene in convoys at
Wal-Mart transporting new shipments of Upside Downs. Which brings us to an
all-important question. What the hell is an Upside Down?
Girl Scout
cookies have invaded all facets of life. This morning I stopped at a Texaco
that offered Trefoils for $4.95 plus tax. One can envision what an Upside Down
looks like. But a Trefoil? I'm clueless.
The
official web site GirlScouts.org, states the girls pictured on the cookie boxes
are actual Girl Scouts. This is amazing considering these same girls were
pictured on the first boxes in....1936. And since "I Love Lucy" was
still on the air when the last public sighting of a Girl Scout occurred, we can
deduce this web site is, in fact, lying.
My brief
investigation determined that the Girl Scouts exist solely to sell cookies.
It's their only assigned task. Under the "Cookie Section" of the web
site an inquisitive parent asks if all girls have to sell cookies, to which the
answer is, "Yes! If she doesn't she will be tarred and feathered."
But, since
we know Girl Scouts do not exist, we can assume no children will be tarred or
feathered for failing to sell cookies. However, mothers are required to sell
4,000 boxes of cookies each year to avoid being run over by brainwashed cookie
soldiers driving wood-grained minivans.
It's also
disturbing that the Girl Scouts are the reason behind the increasing number of
overweight Americans. For example, each serving of Reduced Fat Cartwheels
contains 3,000 calories, with each serving equal to 1/2 of a cookie.
I have
plenty of things left to say about this topic. However, the cookie crumbs keep
causing my computer keys to stick. I'll grab my box of cookies and leave. Soon
the convoy will leave Wal-Mart and I'm nearly out of Thin Mints