It’s My Least Favorite Time of the Year

No, this is not about Christmas.  But Samona is going to buy me this $42 Gold Award ornament – right, Samona?  😉

We’re on the eve of cookie sales.  Our service unit cookie manager has started sending out notices to cookie moms & dads to sign up for trainings, so you know that kickoff date is coming soon.   It’s January 8th for us which I believe is the earliest we’ve ever started – at least since I’ve been a leader.

January 8th is less than a week after school starts back, so there’s no time to ease into 2016.  We’ve got Daisies this year who will be selling cookies for the first time ever, so we’ve got to get them (aka the parents) up to speed since our service unit wasn’t able to put on a cookie rally this year – which, by the way, has a lot to do with sales starting so early.

I know it’s heresy for a lifetime Girl Scout to admit this, but I dread cookie season.  I’m not going to say I hate it, but I definitely harbor some ill feelings toward it. 

It eats up so many weekends that we could be using to do other things.  Pretty much half of February and March are out due to booth sales.  I really don’t push cookie sales at all, so we don’t sign up for many booths – much to the relief of our cookie mom.  We are very blessed though that our parents are able to pay for dues so we are not as dependent on cookie sales as other troops are, so I can afford to be so nonchalant about them.

As gung-ho Girl Scouts as I can be, I am extremely apathetic about cookies.  Our council is going up to $4 a box this year, and there’s some discussion about how much (or how little) troops gain in profit considering there’s now an extra 50⊄.  I’ll breathe fire as a delegate about a lot of topics, but cookie sales is not one of them.  So for anybody reading this – if you want me to shut up, just start talking cookies and I’ll sit there quietly with a glazed look in my eyes.

So why do I get that pit in my stomach when I see a cookie box?  I think it’s because Mrs. Vickers pushed cookies so hard, and I am still burned out even after all of these years.  I felt this intense pressure to sell, sell, SELL! because Troop 20 had very little money, and we took some ambitious trips.  And the 10 year old me said OMG IF I DON’T GET THAT STUFFED RABBIT COMING OUT OF THE TOP HAT INCENTIVE I’M GOING TO DIE.

I knew there was no way I could keep up with the dynamic duo of Caroline and Jenny (and I didn’t even try), but I did attempt to do my part.  There were a lot of duplexes near our neighborhood that housed a lot of University of Georgia students.  My dad would drive me over on a Saturday morning, and I’d get out and start knocking. You see and smell all sorts of things when the door to a UGA student’s home is opened.  Hangovers, guys with disheveled hair in boxers, beer cans strewn all over the front lawn, girls wearing a guy’s button-down shirt (and not much else), and empty liquor bottles were commonplace.  But those bloodshot eyes would immediately light up when they heard, “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?”

My dad said selling cookies to students was like “shooting fish in a barrel.”  Unfortunately, it came with a price.  Back in the day, the vast majority of our cookies sales were door to door – unlike today where it’s all booth sales.  There were no doorbells in those duplexes for some odd reason, so knocking on door after door in the cold started to wear on my knuckles.  I would literally – LITERALLY! come home from selling cookies with bloody knuckles and aching hands.  You couldn’t get away with wearing gloves either because the knock wouldn’t be loud enough.  By the end of cookie season, my hands looked like Rocky’s after one of his workouts in the meat freezer.  And I did this year after year after year….

So most likely my dread of cookie season stems from this negative association.  As Mr. T says:

But I’d like to remind you that Troop 20 was #1 in sales in the entire council for five years in a row!  IN YOUR FACE Northeast Georgia Council!

Even though I’m not so keen on cookie season, I still plan on creating memes for the 2016 season like I have in the past.  Just to review – here’s 2014 and 2015.

I won’t include this one though: