As the Cookie Crumbles

Now that February is past, legions of Girl Scouts have finished knocking on doors to sell their delicious cookies. You may remember from my previous post that I loved scouting and was an ace cookie hawker—an easy sell at 35 cents per box. I hate to sound like the Old School fogie I am, but I remember when my mother bought them for only a quarter per box, from the older twins who lived behind us. Their mom accompanied them and my mother bought a box from each girl.

When I was selling, we were told to wear our uniform when we knocked on doors, or wear our sash over our winter coats, at least. Then we had only one offering—a sandwich cookie. Each box had some vanilla cookies and some chocolate, both with a vanilla filling. So, I’d knock on the door, identifying my product and inviting the lucky person who answered to buy some. Rarely did people say no, but at that price, the cookies weren’t exactly budget busters.

As a former Cookie Mother for my daughter’s troop, I know the real work begins when the cookies arrive. First, we Cookie Moms had to pick up the entire allotment for our troop and take it to our homes. My first year on the job, I was out of town, visiting my high school friend in Indiana, when pick-up time came. My long-suffering husband picked up the dozens of large boxes, filled with the individual boxes of cookies, loaded them in our station wagon, then carried them up our sloping driveway to stash in our Laundry Room. By this time, there were Thin Mints and our entire basement smelled like them for months afterward.

Next, he called each girl and arranged for her pick-up, making sure that she received the correct number and type of cookies. Then she delivered her orders, collecting for each one. Of course, some customers were gone and required multiple trips. Eventually each girl then turned in her money to me, now that I had returned.  I had to check each payment, whether check or cash, for accuracy, before I turned it in to the cookie distributor. As an aside, I read in “The Washington Post” one year, that a Chicago Cookie Mother ran off with her troop’s proceeds. After doing the job for several years, I knew what drove her to it.

At the recent Gumbo Festival here in our Florida resort, two enterprising Girl Scouts, shown in the picture, brought 50 boxes of cookies to sell as they walked through the crowd. By the time I found them, they were down to less than 10 boxes, with all the “best sellers,” thin mints and do-si-does, already gone. Pretty smart girls, I’d say, and wearing parts of their uniforms, too.

Another wrinkle involved Girls Scouts selling cookies at my local grocery store. It seems much more efficient, since it’s a target-rich environment, as the pundits say. But any doubts about cookie-selling in the 21st century were allayed by the second photo.

Notice the small sign above the Girl Scout Cookies sign? My Old School-self laughed out loud.