Girl Scout Cookie Madness

Ah – Girl Scout Cookie Season.  For our family, this is the first time we’ve been actively involved in Girl Scouts as girl-child only became a Brownie last autumn.  We’ve been involved with Cub Scouts and popcorn season because boy-child has been a Cub/Boy Scout since he was in Kindergarten, so we’ve got some experience.  But I’ll tell ya, Cub Scout Popcorn Season ain’t got nuthin’ on Girl Scout Cookie Season.  Not, at least, in my humble opinion.

Let me share with you, dear readers, tonight’s experience.

Setting: Wednesday night supper at church.

Crowd: A lot. Many. Maybe about 100 folks?  I didn’t count.

Mood: Generally happy.

Girl-child and hubby set up the cookies – which had been previously ordered and were now due to be delivered – on a table at the back of the room.  Mind you, there are three Girl Scouts who attend Wednesday night supper at church.  Three.  So when they were all actively selling, it was – needless to say – a bit chaotic.  Some folks were kind enough to purchase cookies from more than one of the girls – and even a few more were nice enough to purchase cookies from all three of them.  We know some wonderful and generous folks, that’s for sure.

Anyway – tonight was delivery night.  All boxes had been clearly labeled with the name of the person who had purchased them and also had been clearly marked as paid, or how much the customer still owed.  Good system.  So girl-child decides she wants my help.  Being the good mommy that I am (and lemme tell you, I’m a good momma) I got up to help.  And, so thinking, I started removing smaller boxes of cookies from the larger boxes they were in and arranging them in piles by customer name.  I was immediately told, “MOM!  I’m a GIRL SCOUT!  I can do this MYSELF!” 

Um…wow.  OK.  Didn’t you just tell me you wanted my help?

“YEAH!” she said, frustrated.  “But you’re not DOING it right!”

So I let her handle it, only stepping in occasionally when she couldn’t remember who someone was or to help her find where someone was sitting.

But here’s the thing – and something neither Hubby nor I was prepared to deal with: Folks kept coming up to us and saying, “Do you have any more?  Can I order or are you just delivering?”  We had to turn folks away because we didn’t buy any extras.  We could have gotten them, but it would have been another day or two before that happened.  Good thing the mom of one of the other Girl Scouts had the foresight to get extras and was able to fulfil these orders.  Hey – share and share alike, right?  A definite lesson learned: get extras!

I couldn’t believe how upset people were that we didn’t catch them when we were originally selling.  I had one guy say, “I can’t support you if I don’t know about it!  No one came to me or asked me anything.” 

Of course, I had to apologize and say that it was an oversight (because it was) and that this was girl-child’s first time selling cookies (because it was) and tell him that I can make sure he gets some (which was true).  All of which seemed to appease him.  But I think ultimately he would have been much happier if we’d come to him the first time around, rather than as an unfortunate afterthought - which, I believe, he thought it was and was, at least initially, miffed at having been excluded.

Because yeah – it was totally personal.                                          NOT!

But girl-child, well, I don’t have her take on this yet.  I am actually quite interested to hear what she thinks about all this cookie madness (‘cause it is…madness).  I’ll keep you posted.

TTFN

JMS

PS: Survey says: "It was fun."  (Said by a very tired girl-child, just now.)