It is that time of year again and while I have already taken
delivery of my annual order of Girl-Scout cookies, the troops remain parked
outside the market in an effort to move more merchandise.
“Ma'am, would you like to buy some Girl-Scout cookies?” They look at me with their sweet faces and
hopeful eyes.
“No, thank you. I
already bought some.”
I try not to meet eyes with the troop leader perched on her
fold out chair behind the table.
“You know you can buy some to stock a local food pantry?”
“Yeah, I know.” I call back to her as I hurriedly push my
cart through the sliding doors.
Don’t glare at me, you
freakin’ CRAZY. What the hell ever
happened to getting off your ass and going door to door?
In recent years, I have purchased my cookies from one scout
in particular: my friend Leila, first daughter of our dear friends from way
back. They actually birthed two girls,
both of which now live by the Girl-Scout law, but I luckily have yet to get
stuck placing two orders in one season. For
example, this year my Nick shelled out $8 from his own wallet, without batting
an eye, to place his own order for two boxes from little sister Maddie. He even let her pick which kind. I have to say that my favorites are still the
Thin Mints, pulled right out of the freezer.
But times have changed.
In addition to changes in sales techniques, e.g.: a spam-email sales solicitation
to all non-diabetic friends and family members, the product itself isn’t what it used to be. The cookies taste roughly
the same but the
wafer shape is slightly different and dare I say slightly less. And what passes as a sleeve of Thin Mints
today amounts to about a third less cookies, in my estimation, than it used to.
And believe me, I know my Thin Mint
sleeves. We’ve had a love-hate
relationship since the mid 90’s. Back
when I was fresh out of college and took my first job issuing returns for a
videogame publisher. Back when I shared
an office with both my boss and the company’s giant network servers because business
was booming and there wasn’t enough room for all the new hires. Back when coming back from lunch and opening
a box of freshly delivered Girl Scout Cookies to get you through an afternoon
of data entry seemed like a good idea.
“Are you sure you should eat all of those?” My boss Betsi who was equal parts friend looked
over at me from across our “office”.
My eyes left my monitor momentarily and I looked down at the
now half-eaten sleeve of Thin Mints in the clear, cellophane wrapper next to my
key board.
“I don’t know. How
many are in a sleeve?”
“They’re on your desk.
Count them.” She left the “you,
moron” off but it was totally implied so we both started giggling. That’s what girls in their early twenties who
issue returns for a living did in the mid 90’s.
Mocked one another and laughed harder and harder until they were under
their desks and had tears running down their faces. Then the quittin’ bell rang.
I pulled out the uneaten sleeve and counted.
“20. Is that a lot?”
“Are you listening to yourself?” She asked.
“Dude, they’re good and they’re small.”
I have always been a skinny-fat-person. Admittedly, in my early twenties, I was a
slightly less skinny fat person thanks to my commitment to regularly making it
to closing time but I was still quite thin.
In fact, we actually had a woman in our department who was the object of
several “chubby chaser” men at the time.
She responded to their ads. Anyway,
I remember she used to walk into our office on Monday mornings to recap her weekend
romps with my boss and she’d occasionally look over at me like she felt sorry
for me. Like my lack of weight surely handicapped my "game". I didn’t let it bother me,
though. Especially during Girl Scout
cookie season.
“Whatever,” was all my 23 year-old boss-friend could say to
her 22 year old subordinate-friend. I had put her in a difficult spot. As my boss, she wasn't paying me for stunt-eating; but as my friend, I know she wanted to be supportive and non-judgmental.
We both resumed our duties issuing returns. I continued to chase mine with Thin Mints and
in an instant, the entire sleeve was gone.
“Should I go for the second sleeve?” I asked Betsi across
the office. Reader’s note: you know when you are asking to be dared to eat something as a 22 year-old woman who considers herself reasonably attractive by most standards, you have hit some kind of all-time low.
Betsi looked away from her monitor and at me for just a
moment. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re
trying to do.”
“I’m not trying to ‘do’ anything. They’re good.” I was getting defensive.
“Do what you gotta do.”
She went back to her monitor.
As I wrestled with the cellophane on the second sleeve, I was
given the opportunity to reflect for a moment on appropriate cookie
servings. Growing up, my extremely
conservative parents allowed me no more than three Oreos at any time. I had already blown through that number more
than six-fold. I decided I was satisfied
with my act of mid-afternoon rebellion.
I put down the Thin Mints and turned my attention to the real task at hand but soon felt the
first wave of consequences in my upper-intestines.
Oh hell.
I looked at the clock.
2 o’clock.
I can make it three
more hours.
I adjusted myself in my chair and tried to turn my attention
back to my monitor but it was no use.
The cramping was getting worse and was quickly working its way through
my lower intestines.
Oh, screw it. I’m not curing cancer here. I’m not even using my English degree.
“I don’t feel good.” I announced to the network servers and Betsi.
“Well, that’s shocking.”
Betsi looked at me mockingly across our office.
“Seriously, I don’t feel good.”
“Seriously, I believe you.
You just ate a whole freakin’ sleeve of Thin Mints and it’s not like
that pizza we had for lunch was light.” The
implied “you morons” ran throughout her response. It was clear I would get no sympathy from
her.
I sat there silent for
a moment but it didn’t take long for her to continue.
“Look, if your dumb ass is telling me you need to go home three
hours early because you ate too many cookies, that’s fine but you’re going to
have to tell Cindy.”
Cindy was our collective boss. Me, Betsi, chubby-chased, and a bunch of
other accounts payable/receivable types all reported into her. And she was pretty bad–ass. When she wasn’t yelling at warehouse
managers, she was sucking on "heaters" (read: cigarettes) outside in the courtyard. But in that moment, I didn’t care. Shit was literally about to go down. I was out of my chair and standing in front
of her office in a second.
Cindy motioned me in to have a seat and I waited for her to
hang up the phone.
“So what’s going on?”
She smiled at me but she had her right hand on her pack of smokes so I knew
she had about one toe in our conversation.
Fuck it.
“I ate too many Girl Scout cookies and I think I might puke.” I blurted out.
If my parents knew I uttered these words to my boss’s boss
five months into my first job after completing the degree that they paid for, I
probably wouldn’t be alive these nearly twenty years later to reflect on it.
She shook her head and stood up at the same time. “You dumb-ass. Did Betsi say it was ok for you to go home?”
“Yes. She said I had
to check with you.”
“Go home.”
When I returned to our office to turn off my computer and
grab my purse, Betsi just shook her head at me.
“See you tomorrow.” Her tone was that of complete annoyance.
“See ya!” I threw my purse over my shoulder, grabbed the second
sleeve, and made a break for it.
And yes, after all of this: the recipe change, the prices going
up and the quantity going down, the near overdose… yes, after all of this, you
will still find me downstairs in my freezer roughly fifteen seconds after
pressing “post” on this entry.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
