Ding dong, you're fat.

Just in time to ruin everyone's diet for the new year, it's the Girl Scout cookie sale.

I could wax nostalgic about my time slinging Girl Scout smack, but I only spent a year as a Brownie. It was long enough to learn that "one is silver and the other's gold." It was not long enough to turn me into a multi-level marketing entrepreneur.

Instead, I'm living the vicarious dream through my three erstwhile door-to-door saleswomen. Each is hoping to sell the 5,000 boxes required to earn a mini pen. Unfortunately, we don't live next to a Curves.

Oh, friends, ignore the snark. I'm a devotee of the Girl Scouts. The organization is girl-powered, girl-motivated, and girl-lead. Troops are independently functioning microcosms of girl power festering with volunteerism and camaraderie. They receive very few edicts from the larger organization, only relying on "Big Sister" to supply opportunities, support, and those damn patches.

That, and cookies.

But the core buying group, our family, friends who owe us a favor, and all of those people's co-workers, live many miles away. This affords us fewer opportunities to make an easy sale.

We do what we can. The girls get on their sashes and smocks and I pull their hair into pig tails, the go-to hairstyle for disarming elderly neighbors on a fixed income. We pre-buy our cookies, carting them behind us in a wagon. All it takes for some marks is the sight of Caramel Delights to free the Benjamins.

The kids practice their pitches on daddy.

"Hello, we're selling—
SLAM

"Hello, sir—
"I'm a woman!"

"Hello! Would you like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?"
"Are they trans-fat free? Organic? Whole grain? Made by elves? Low sugar? High carb? Made in China? India? Detroit? Made with love? Made with free-range chocolate? College educated? Fiscally conservative, but socially liberal? Communist? Terrorist? Elitist? Defeatist? And how much do they cost?"

Eventually, we're ready. You're vegan? We've got something for that. No nuts? No problem. Chocolate allergy, but you love peanut butter? That's why Juliette Gordon Low invented Peanut Butter Sandwiches.

When we've exhausted the breadth of our sales pitches. When our dimpled cheeks are screwed permanently into place from smiling our biggest Girl Scout smiles, there is but one doorbell left un–ding-donged. Our own.

That's why, when the sale is long over and summer is chasing away spring, I'll be selling my personal stash of Peanut Butter Patties on the Craig's List black market. And I'll be doing it with melted chocolate and gooey coconut stuck to my upper lip.

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