This is my favorite time of the year; it’s when Samoas, Thin Mints and Tagalongs come out to play. Yes folks, this is the season of Girl Scout Cookies. Except this year there is a dark shadow over our home because not one Girl Scout stopped by to sell us cookies. Not one! In almost forty years of marriage, that’s never happened before.
Maybe it’s for the best. We always buy ten to fifteen boxes and there’s a feeling of unbridled joy when I open the cupboard and see them all neatly stacked on the shelf in alphabetical order. But that feeling of euphoria fades quickly as I open the first box and take a cookie. Opening a box of Girl Scout cookies is a little like breaking a twenty dollar bill. Once you do it, it doesn’t take long until it’s all gone. One Thin Mint leads to two. Two lead to a whole row and before you can say “Be prepared,” the entire box is history. Fifteen boxes usually last about two weeks and then I have a fifty week dry spell. Which begs the question, “Why do Girl Scouts only sell cookies once a year?”
There are alternatives. One major cookie maker has knock-offs that are actually pretty close. For all I know they may be making them at one of the same bakeries that produce the real deal. Regardless, at least I have a viable option for a mid-summer Samoa fix. That’s more than I can say about some of my other addictions with season specific limitations.
MaryJane candies, for example, also have a one time per year supply problem. MaryJanes are those chewy maple flavored candies with a dollop of peanut butter in the middle. I like them not only because they taste good, but because they… oh who am I kidding; I just like them because they’re yummy. You can only find them around Halloween and even then sometimes you have to call out the search hounds. Why can’t you get them all year long? Is there a shortage of maple syrup or peanut butter that Mrs. Butterworth and Peter Pan don’t know about?
Then there’s spice jelly beans, try to find those anytime except around Easter. You can find Jelly Bellys and regular jelly beans all year long. Give a look for spice jelly beans in September and let me know how that works out for you.
It’s not limited to candy and cookies either. If you get an urge for a pumpkin cupcake in April or some snicker doodle ice cream in January, you’re headed for some serious withdrawal symptoms. I know; I’ve been there.
At least you can find those tasty treats eventually. I really start yammering to myself when companies market “one time only” products. Pop Tarts and Fast Food restaurants are famous for that. I’m still lusting for another box of Vanilla Milkshake or Spiderman Pop Tarts and when was the last time you were able to find a cherry Dilly Bar at Dairy Queen? Speaking of ice cream, whatever happened to cherry flavored Klondike Bars?
Why does McDonalds keep taking away and bringing back McRibs and…oh the list is endless. Sigh, why can’t companies understand that, at my age, I’m a creature of habit. I know what I like and when I want to have it. If they’re not going to give me a stable supply then they shouldn’t get me hooked in the first place.
But, back to the subject at hand—the current dearth of Thin Mints. It’s too late this evening to do anything about it, but tomorrow after work I have only one option. I’m going to go from shopping center to shopping center until I find a table in front of one of the stores that’s filled with boxes of cookies and manned by a little girl in pigtails and her mom. I’m a couple of weeks late this year so my pent up demand is larger than normal. I wonder how many boxes of cookies will fit in the bed of a pickup truck. I wonder if Girl Scouts can process a debit card.
See ya.
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