It's Girl Scout Cookie Time!

Little Brownie Bakers

Back in the day, there were few times of the year that made me more miserable than the Girl Scout cookie drive. Every afternoon and on weekends, I would put on my oh-so-stylish brown polyester jumper and sash and roam the streets of my neighborhood, knocking on doors and, if anyone answered, asking "Do you want to buy Girl Scout cookies?"

More accurate, I muttered this inquiry to my shoes. It didn't really help that everyone else in my Brownie troop lived in the same neighborhood. A household unmolested by little girls in brown polyester was a rare, rare thing. I found the seemingly-endless rejection painful.

Eventually, in order to help me make my quota and win some of the cooler prizes (like the stuffed penguin I particularly coveted one year), my father would take the cookie sign-up sheet to work. One glorious year, we had to staple an extra sheet to the one provided by the Girl Scouts.

My father was a salesman by profession, so I assumed his success with cookies came from his vast experience and superior sales patter. It wasn't until college when a writing-workshop classmate brought in a cookie sign-up sheet and politely asked us if we care to buy a box of cookies and we all pounced on it so ferociously that we nearly tore it to shreds that I learned the truth:

Adults + Girl Scout Cookies - neighborhood inhabited by Girl Scouts = fish in a barrel.

Little Brownie Bakers

New this year: Dulce de Leche.

Brownies these days have it way easier. Sometime since the early eighties, it occurred to troop leaders that they could buy mass quantities of cookies and sell them outside heavily-trafficked places, like the supermarket. This makes things easier, both for the Brownies and for those who do not live among them.

The Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri have very kindly set up a web site this year to tell you where and when to find the little darlings and their Thin Mints. Type in up to three zip codes and the site will tell you dates and times and all that other stuff. In general, booths will be open for business on weekends between Saturday, February 28, and Sunday, March 15.

Little Brownie Bakers

Hooray, no recall!

The only reason not to rejoice is that the price of cookies has gone up 50 cents this year, to $3.50. The Girl Scouts note that this is the first price increase in 12 years. But still. Sigh.

And oh, yes, the much-beloved (at least by me) peanut butter Tagalongs are safe to eat.