Girl Scout Cookie Capers
by Amy Kenneley

The trefoil pin was at the bottom of the jewelry box, nestled with a mood ring and an identity bracelet.

I remember the day the Girl Scout trefoil pin was pinned on my uniform. Mother had carefully packed away my Brownie beanie, the one with the felt loop and the orange brownie dancing on the front. She gave the Brownie dress to another up-and-coming Brownie.

Now I was standing in my new Girl Scout green dress with several other girls at the pinning ceremony. My yellow scarf was tied just right, because I had practiced it many times, "right over left, left over right, makes a square knot nice and tight."

Then we said the pledge and I was pinned with the trefoil and became a real Girl Scout.

Holding the little pin now, memories of scout leaders Miss Lindy and Miss Marion return; how they taught us to walk the swinging bridge by the old mill, how we swung from gigantic wild grapevines in the woods.

On a camp weekend they woke us before dawn on Sunday, and as we shivered on benches in the moist darkness, they read the first chapter of Genesis, the sun bursting over the horizon as if on cue when they reached the part " --and God called the light day.."

How we practiced knots, and outdoor skills, and learned to hike and look for animal tracks. We learned songs like "My Grandfather's Clock" and "Peace I Ask of You Oh River" and "I'm Happy When I'm Hiking."

But when I think of Girl Scouting, the biggest memory is - The Cookie Sale. Once a year in the spring we geared for the Big Push-that necessary sales pitch across the country to support the Scouting experience.

This was the part I dreaded. Even in my starched uniform and my correctly tied right-over-left scarf and my shiny new pin and my green beret and my very best Girl Scout smile-I was no saleslady.

On the assigned door-knocking day, it seemed every Girl Scout had already combed my neighborhood. I was able to get a few orders, but others, it seemed, had swept along a Shortbread and Chocolate Mint tide ahead of me.

Good thing I had a secret weapon. Mom worked in an office. An office connected to a large factory. There was an undercover market of sorts, where moms and dads were selling something for their children or for their organization.

Mom had been the happy purchaser of hand-sewn aprons, home-made potica, jewelry, candy, calendars and all-occasion cards, and of course, the every-present raffle tickets. Now it was her turn. "Give me the order sheet, Amy Lou, and I will sell some cookies for you."

And sell she did. Those office desks must have concealed about 4 boxes each of Shortbreads, and the Thin Mints crammed into factory lockers never risked melting in the heat, because they were consumed on the spot.

Our troop had a "best seller" designation, and I had become the "best seller" in the troop. I was too embarrassed to admit that Mom had done all the work, and that she would probably be purchasing hand-sewn aprons and raffle tickets until retirement in under the counter thank-you purchases.

Fast forward about 20 years and another Girl Scout comes home with a Girl Scout cookie order sheet. This Scout, my daughter, inherited none of my shyness. She was the Go-Getter, the Cheerleader of the family. Selling cookies should be no problem for her.

She tramped our street, an even longer street than I had lived on. She was a star sales-scout, with a filled order sheet she triumphantly waved on her return from a selling expedition. But as good as she was, the other sections of our suburb had already been canvassed, and there seemed to be no extra pennies for the 50-cents- a-box Girl Scout cookies. Enter Grandma.

"Let me see that list, honey," Grandma said, and she went to work the next day with a fresh order sheet. Grandma was into big-time cookie selling, and her granddaughter learned a wonderful lesson in supply and demand. If you demand a larger order, it will be supplied.

Where neighbors ordered at most a box or two, Grandma had all the finesse on her side. "Shall I put you down for 4 or 5 boxes of the Shortbread? What about those Peanut Butter things-- you want 3 of those, too?"

A phone call from the district leader begged me to become the local cookie depot, where the cookies from several area scout troops could pick up their cookie orders. Feeling guilty about my decades-earlier masquerade as a top trooper of cookie sales, I agreed. After all, I thought, how hard can that be? How long could it take?

My job, as I was told, was to be at home when the cookies arrived, call the district leader that they had arrived, and then wait for them to be picked up and distributed to the buyers. Piece a' cake.

I awaited the van's arrival on the circled date. "Momma! Momma! There's a big truck in the street!" my not-yet-pre-schooler came running. "Stay here, honey, it will be pulling into our driveway." Preschooler stared out the window and even with his inexperience eye declared, "I don't thinnnnnnk so!"

That's when I came to the front window. There was no truck van in the street. Perhaps "Mayflower Vans" would best describe the size of the delivery vehicle. And it definitely would not be pulling into our barely-six-feet-across concrete driveway.

The doors opened, and a hand dolly was lowered by one man while another checked his invoice, confirmed with me that I was indeed the recipient of his delivery. He sighed a big one. "Okay, ma'am, we'll bring 'em in."

The 1-1/2 foot square boxes began to come in. They started to put them in the Girl Scout's bedroom, but that was soon full. They moved to the family room, and they lined a whole wall and up 5 boxes high.

Then the living room, where they lined another wall. Then the dining room, et cetera, et cetera...Then the hallway, where they teetered precariously.

"Sign here, ma'am." I signed. They left. The dog was already sniffing the bottoms of the boxes with that "oboyoboyfood" sniff of his. The school bus came and turned the corner. Girl Scout, and her two brother Boy Scouts ran in the door and stopped. "Wow!" was all they could say.

I have thankfully forgotten what Himself said when he came from work, but you can guess. I was already on the phone after supper checking to see that every troop leader knew the cookies were here and they should pick them up RIGHT NOW.

Eventually, the cookies disappeared. It took about a week to make sure that every box spoken for had been picked up and taken away. I didn't care where they took them, just that they be TAKEN AWAY.

A full week of keeping the dog from scratching the cardboard, and keeping hungry boys from helping themselves to "just a few, Mom!" and then the two smaller ones from climbing up the "big mountains" of boxes they insisted on arranging and rearranging had worn my volunteerism a bit thin.

I hoped that the cookies they had climbed across weren't reduced to Shortcrumbs and Mint smash. I wrote on my calendar "Don't volunteer again!" Himself appended beneath my notation "Yeah, right!"

The biggest pick-up of cookies was of course, Grandma, who had come through like the Trooper she was. It took 3 car trips to get all the cookies to the factory and office.

"Thanks, Gram! I was the biggest seller!" "Of course you were!" Grandma beamed.

That is when Boy Scout One and Boy Scout Two ran up to her and enthused, "Guess what, Gram! Our troop is selling candy so we can go to camp! Will you buy some?"

"Well, just give me that list, my honeys!" and Grandma grabbed two sheets and put them in her purse, while I mentally surveyed how much floor space another Mayflower Van's worth of Carmel Melts and Crunchy Bars would take up.