Girl Scout's Honor

Sunday was Championship Day in the NFL.

For you.

Sunday was Opening Day in the Neighborhood.

For me.

The first day my eight-year-old daughter was permitted to sell her Girl Scout cookies.

The first request came in Saturday night.

“Daddy?”

Twinkle in the eyes, flash of the pearly whites.

“Can you take me around tomorrow to sell Girl Scout cookies?”

TOMORROW???

TOMORROW IS CHAMPIONSHIP SUNDAY!!!

ARE YOU KIDDING???

I said.

To myself.

But as required, I responded with “sure, sweetie.”

Realizing that the rest of the neighborhood was doing what I had hoped to be doing.

We took off just before kickoff of game one.

I figured we’d put in a couple of hours.

And get home for the two-minute warning.

We are pretty new to our neighborhood and I don’t really know many of the neighbors.

So I wasn’t too concerned about asking friends for money.

But I gotta be honest, I’m not a big fan of that.

But just to be sure, instead of walking door-to-door, next to our door, we headed across the boulevard.

It took three or four homes for somebody to answer.

But when they did, they couldn’t turn down the cookies.

Or they couldn’t turn down my daughter.

Whatever.

The bottom line is the first home bought four boxes, immediately.

And they got those four boxes, immediately.

You see this year, them Girl Scout people smartened up.

Instead of making you order cookies.

And waiting a month for them to arrive.

This year we had the boxes with us.

Now unfortunately we didn’t have one of them giant wheel barrels to make this an easier project.

So instead I packed a bunch of boxes in a rolling suitcase.

And a bunch more in an ice cooler.

We must’ve been a sight for sore eyes.

But we had a goal here.

And that goal was to sell 70 boxes.

70 boxes at $3.50 a piece.

And if my daughter sells those 70 boxes.

Or $245 worth of cookies.

She gets .... a patch.

A real-life patch.

Really?

Really!

Who’s running this scam, the Fox News Channel?

Ok scam might be a little harsh.

But $245 gets you a patch?

In this economy?

Not even a Snuggie... or ShamWow?

But hey, the more cookies we sell.

The more cookies WE don’t have to buy.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Girl Scout cookies.

Who doesn’t?

I love them all.

No favorites here.

Ok, toy gun to my head....

The coconut encrusted Samoas.

Or maybe the frozen Thin Mints.

Or the peanut buttery Do-Si-Dos.

Ok, no favorites here.

And the same could be said for our neighbors.

They didn’t really care what they were getting.

They were just happy to be getting them.

Now!

The biggest challenge we had wasn’t selling the cookies.

But it was getting people to answer the door.

You see my daughter learned a new word on Sunday.

Soliciting.

As in NO SOLICITING.

The hardest part for us was finding a neighbor who was home.

And didn’t mind being bothered.

As a good role model, I respected every single house who didn’t want us there.

Even if I didn’t want to.

But after a while it became quite annoying.

I would say two out of every four homes didn’t want us there.

Close to 45%.

But thankfully the rest of the hood made up for them.

A Tagalong here.

A Savannah Smile there.

Trefoils.

Dulce de Leche.

Thank U Berry Munch.

We had ‘em all.

And were selling them all.

At least we were on our way to selling them all.

When trouble showed up.

Trouble in the form of a mom and her mini-van.

With a big smile on her face, Mrs. Buzzkill greeted us.

“Hey, you may not want to sell these over here.”

Big Smile.

“We have 12 Girl Scouts on this street.”

Twinkle twinkle.

“Oh that was so nice of her,” my daughter said.

At which point I paused.

And informed her that the Girl Scout Nazi was kicking us out of her neighborhood.

“Oh.”

So we packed up our boxes and headed home.

The good news is we made it home in time for the fourth quarter.

The bad news is we only sold 37 boxes.

Barely enough to get half a patch.