I spend most of Girl Scout cookie season feeling a mix of pride and embarassment as my daughters shout to friends and strangers alike: "COOOOKIES! BUY YOUR GIRL SCOUT COOKIES HERE! WE TAKE VENMO!"
Seeing your daughter sweet talk potential customers into sales is undeniably fascinating. You look at this little person who just screamed at you to cut the "crust" off her pancakes and can't quite align her with the angelic child you see making change and sweetly saying, "Thank you for supporting our troop!"
It’s almost like running into your third grade teacher at Costco — you’re initially delighted to see a familiar face ... and then you wonder how they got so old.
This year, my 7- and 9-year-old daughters are in two different Brownie troops, and I happen to be a Troop Leader for one of them. (That was my first mistake.)
I love that cookie sales help my daughters learn to talk to adults, add in multiples of 6 (cookies are a whopping $6 a box), team up with their friends and work toward a sales goal.
But man, cookie season is a slog.
If you're not a Girl Scout parent, you might not realize that cookie season lasts a thousand years. Or at least it feels that way.
You get your first cookie prep email in mid-December, when you're crumbling under the weight of the mental load of the holidays; sales open right around the new year when all you want to do is escape from your oversugared children; outdoor cookie booths seem to be scheduled only on snowy/rainy/freezing cold days in February and March; and sales blessedly end around Easter time in April.
Amen.
During that time, you have to sign your Scout up on two different sales sites and track orders and payments on a paper form. PAPER. And if your child doesn't lose/destroy/scribble on the form, you need to enter all the information on the first website and make sure the numbers on the second (sort of archaic) website match.
If you have a momentary lapse in judgement and volunteer to be the "Cookie Mom," you have my sympathies. (That was my second mistake.)
You may end up with panic dreams of Trefoils burying you alive by the time you help your daughter deliver her last box.
Cookie Moms have to pick up boxes of cookies from a "Cookie Cupboard" (that is likely not geographically convenient) and shove the cookies in your car; you'll probably have to remove the car seats to make room. You have to guilt other parents into helping you count the cookies sold by each Scout and arrange pickup with busy parents who, like you, don't want their homes to be consumed by cookie boxes. After taking inventory of the remainder, you bring the rest to the cookie booths that you pre-scheduled with area businesses.
Did I mention that after all that work, your daughter’s troop receives only $1 per box sold? That doing all the final paperwork is infuriating and time consuming? And that the money doesn’t arrive until months later?
No matter how warm and fuzzy your childhood memories of Thin Mints and Samoas are, you may end up with panic dreams of Trefoils burying you alive by the time you help your daughter deliver her last box.
And yet, I somehow feel excited to board the cookie roller coaster every single year.
How can all of these feelings coexist? I have no idea.
Before becoming a mom, I would turn down Girl Scouts left and right. I was never a Girl Scout myself, plus I was a freelancer and didn't like the cookies enough to spend my precious spare funds on them.
Two years ago, a grandmotherly woman stopped at our cookie booth and said, "My daughters were Girl Scouts years ago. I decided that whenever a Girl Scout asked me to buy cookies, I would buy one box."
I think of that woman often during cookie season. She reminded me that it's really not about the cookies. You're buying tradition. You're buying nostalgia. You're buying a feel-good moment.
And that's pretty darn sweet.
