They're Known on the Street as "Do-Si-Dos"

Yesterday on the way home from work I hit the neighborhood Publix for some stuff. Out in front were a Girl Scout and her mother behind a folding table, selling their drugs in broad daylight. She said there were only two boxes left, the peanut butter kind. If Thin Mints are the heroin of Girl Scout Cookies, then the peanut butter ones are the crack. They call them Do-Si-Dos. She gave me her sad, pleading eyes as some handmade sign behind her declared something about “Buy Cookies and Support the Military.” Yeah, whatever.

I said, “If those are still here when I come out, I’ll buy them,” confident that some other addict would lapse and fall for this phony “Girl Scout Cookies Support the Troops” sales gimmick.

I left the store and she was still there. So were the cookies. I said, “Shut this thing down. I’m buying your last two boxes.” As I handed over $7, she thanked me profusely and actually said, “You’re my hero.”

I’m sure as I left she pulled out two more boxes and repeated the ruse for the next sucker. The boxes now sit in the pantry, as yet unopened. Those things only come around once a year. Got to hold on to them.

Previously in Evil Lying Drug Dealer Girl Scouts

A National Epidemic

He opened the door to find the dealer standing on his porch again, smiling her sweet, semi-toothless smile, proudly displaying her gang's colors. Like many kids in that part of town, she'd been brought into the gang at a young age. There just wasn't much a kid could do to resist their aggressive recruiting efforts, and gang membership offered prestige, rewards and a sense of belonging.

She was just a pawn in a much bigger game, and the man couldn’t fault her for doing what her ruthless masters were forcing her to do. There was no real “pushing” involved. She only needed to know how much he wanted to buy. He had quit the habit almost a year ago, gone clean - started a new life, free of her addicting junk. The stuff could possess a man; make him wake up at night craving it. One was too many – a hundred not enough.

And maybe she wasn’t so innocent after all. There was something behind that smile. Something that said, “You love it, Mister. You need it. With as much as you bought off me last year, you made me a hero in my gang. I’m counting on you again to help me rake in the cash. I'm gonna have respect among my peers. I'm gonna rise in the ranks.”

He caved, of course – and later that month when he saw her with her mother, he pretended to be joking as he shouted from across the parking lot, “Where are my cookies?!”

“Next Wednesday,” they both called out with waves and smiles.

“Better hurry the fuck up,” he muttered under his breath.



Last Year in Evil Girl Scouts

Girl Scout Cookies Filled with Crack

The Girl Scouts don't really know how to sell. They just show up at your door and your mouth waters and you buy some of their cookies. Or their Moms or Dads do the "selling" for them at work. And you rarely buy just one box. And at $3.50 (up $1 from a decade ago) for a tiny box, you're getting hosed bigtime. But you don't care. It's an addiction. Not sure what the organization is paying per box, but the consumer is paying, in some cases, 23 cents per cookie.

But you say to yourself, "66% of Women of Professional Achievement were Girl Scouts at some point in their youth," or you remind yourself that 71.4% of women in the U. S. Senate and 67.1% of the women in the House of Representatives today are Girl Scout alumnae.

Then when you run out of the cookies, the little salesgirls are camped out in front of Home Depot or your local supermarket with their leftover "surplus."

They don't advertise. They just show up. And they make $700 million a year. That's pretty impressive. Boy Scouts can't touch those numbers with their crappy popcorn sales. It's an American tradition that we look forward to every year. And the cookies are gone way too soon. If the Girl Scouts got smart, they'd have more than one selling season.

Not sure why this 1932 cover of The Country Gentleman featured a troop of Girl Scouts hiking up a hill, but it's a mildly disturbing cover image for a men's magazine. The Country Pedophile, maybe.