For the most part, I have been fortunate enough to avoid the Girl Scout cookie dilemma. I never had friends with kids that were members of the troop, and whenever I ran into one of the booths they have set up at the store, I’ve always been out of money. Therefore, this recent experience with them has left me blindsided. I realize that some of you have undergone this process before. I kneel before you in respect. After I kneel, I’ll also lay down for a little while. This is not meant to offend you, but rather to give my body a break from carrying around the freshly minted 10 pounds I’ve added since my cookie order arrived.
It began with a photo; a kindergarten photo of a little girl, with long curly hair and sparkling eyes. A photo that screamed, ‘I am the future! I am dazzling and pure, I run through flowered meadows, play with puppies, and say the alphabet all by myself.” When you see this photo being slid across the table towards you, you need to run. Run fast, run far, don’t worry about pushing and shoving, because, while you may not know it yet, you’re in the center of a bull’s eye and you’re in trouble. I didn’t run. I didn’t see it coming. All I saw was cuteness; A bundle of cuteness that wanted me to have cookies. Needless to say, I did my part in filling up her order form.
The next step involves waiting for the cookies. This step was probably the easiest for me to bear. I didn’t have to pay for the cookies until they arrived, so I wasn’t missing any money, and I sort of forgot they were coming. I knew that someday cookies would come, but I wasn’t really fixated on that fact. As I said, I hadn’t really been exposed to the allure of the cookies prior to this. Those of you that are cookie veterans might suffer this step quite a bit differently than I did.
Fast forward to today. Arrival day. The big one. Box after box of cookies set aside specifically for me. Somehow, the numbers I wrote down on the order form didn’t seem that big to me when I had initially wrote them. Now though, I could see the sum of all those numbers in their glory. Now that the cookies were available, so was the bill attached to them. The bill was also a number that seemed to have grown more eminent as time had gone by. I high tail it to the ATM. Slide the card, enter my pin, withdrawal, punch in numbers, come on come on, no no I wouldn’t like my receipt it will just make me feel guilty later, p r o c e s s i n g , p r o c e s s i n g, out comes the money, and I run back to claim my packages!
This is the moment of truth. Where you can still turn back, you can pawn off your boxes on someone else, you can hurry into a large crowd of people and offer to share, there are many many options at this point that can still save you. What you don’t want to do? You don’t want to open the boxes yourself, when you’re alone, with no witnesses. That’s bad.
These cookies, these angelic, beautiful cookies that are helping to send smiling children to Disneyland, have betrayed me. They are not my friend. But it was too late. I had already invited the enemy into my home with welcoming arms. I was so naive.
Here is a running record of my thoughts during the past hour:
Mmm, cookies! Don’t mind if I do!
Wow, that was good. I’ve only had one; it wouldn’t hurt to try this kind either.
Well, I might as well try one of each kind, that’s only fair. Plus, sampling them will allow me to better judge their quality and taste.
(At this point all of the packages have been opened, and are all still positioned in front of me.)
Okay, those are good. But, I need to stop eating for a minute.
(Pause a moment, feel free to mock my attempt at self-control as I walk away.)
I sure do wish I had brought one of those cookies over here with me. I mean, just to nibble on as I sit here.
Okay, I’ll go grab one.
(I go over, and grab two. Just in case. )
Those disappeared fast; I better just bring the box over here. Maybe that box too, so that I can have variety.
It was sometime after this last thought, where I must have given in to an intense. sugar induced, comatose state. I have fallen victim to the Girl Scout cookie campaign of 2011. I have said Yes-I-Do to Do-Si-Dos. I have turned Thin Mints into ‘I’m Not Getting Any Thinner’ Mints. I walked into this path, unknowing, and it has cost me dearly. I may never be the same.
If you find yourself staring at a curly haired, doll faced six year old, I worry about your fate. I know that you won’t refuse her pleas, because I couldn’t refuse them either. Trying to do so would be futile, and make you look like a Grinch. So, I merely suggest that you are more intelligent than I was in this position. Limit yourself, share with others, and wear sweatpants instead of jeans when you’re eating them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to just lie here for a moment or two and catch my breath.
No comments:
Post a Comment