Cookie Monsters

I recently encountered young girls in short skirts standing on street corners soliciting me to give them money in exchange for a treat.

No, not hookers! Girls Scouts!

It's springtime. You all know what that means here in the United States...allergies, daylight savings (except Arizona) and Girl Scout cookie sales.

Unlike this man, many people succumb to the guerrilla-style 
sales tactics of Girl Scout cookie sellers by failing to 
employ the very simple “No Eye Contact” rule.

On every corner and in front of every supermarket, tables are set up and decorated with boxes of cookies, fronted by pigtailed little angels holding hand-made signs and subjecting the public to their famous "Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" taunts. And you're not going to say no, because you've been strung out for almost a whole year waiting to buying a box of Thin "crackMints" to feed your addiction. That's right. Addicition. Girl Scouts are the drug lords of the cookie world. The difference between a drug cartel and Girl Scouts is FDA approval. During the first quarter of every year, their Thin Mint cookies are #1, outselling even Oreos. Estimated at $785 million, Girl Scout cookies are the #3 cookie product sold in the U.S., with five of the ten best-selling cookies during those three months.

It's not enough that these girls go after the easy targets - parents, grandparents and old ladies in the neighborhood - these little darlings pimp their dads for sales, too. (Sadly, I was a victim of one such evil child.) Who's going to fuck up their career by not contributing part of their salary to the boss so his little girl can level-up on the sales chart to get her cookie bling? A large office complex can turn into a Greek marketplace overnight. And since everyone's obligated to buy from everyone else, it seems as if the same $4 are being passed the office around like a bad cold.

Did you? No.: When you buy a box of Girls Scout cookies and write the purchase off as a charitable deduction on your tax return, you may be committing tax fraud. That's because, according to the Girl Scouts' web site, if you keep the cookies for personal consumption you've purchased a product at fair market value. To receive a tax write-off, you must give them the money and leave the cookies.

Speaking of $4...it seems like only yesterday when they were $2 a box. Then it was $3.50. Now a box of cookies is as expensive as a gallon of gas, and I can make a gallon of gas last longer than a tray of coconut-laced Samoas. If the boxes feel a little lighter, too, it's because in 2009 a weighty concern arose prompting the organization to reduce the number of cookies per box. The weight issue was related to the cost of shipping, not your gut. Additional production costs have impacted quality, as well. And judging by the Photoshopped box art (above), you know they must have paid top dollar for marketing.

But it's not all about the cookies. The official Girl Scout web site proclaims, "When a Girl Scout sells you cookies, she's building a lifetime of skills and confidence." Like marketing and sales planning. Like public interaction and self-expression. Like learning that even if you suck at doing your job, baked goods are an excellent way to distract people from that.