It's Girl Scout Cookie time again around here, and I've had it on my mind. I don't know if it's because I live in a different place now, or if the way things are done has changed, but I envy today's scouts a bit.
Back in the early '90s, when I was doing my tour of duty, things were different. It's worth remembering that the parenting motto of that era was "I love you and all, but let's not get weird here," so the selling method involved a child knocking on your door and adorably asking you to order some cookies. It helped that it was February in an extraordinarily cold place, so we are talking about peak street urchin look, with pink cheeks and red nose and, further in the selling day, endearing shivering.
We were told to sell only to the people we knew (the whole neighborhood) and not to go into anyone's house (yeah, right. It was twenty degrees out there, tops, and we knew these people, mostly.). Some girls had the option of simply handing the form to their parents, who would gallantly hand it around at work, guaranteeing sales of at least fifty boxes. We did not have those parents. Mom might take it to her small office, but if you had an orthodontist appointment during the sales period that required you to stop by her work next door, you were required to come in with your own pitch. Dad's colleagues downtown had all agreed that they bought from the kids, not from parents, so I would do a sales tour of all the downtown businesses.
One year, I was cold on my way home from downtown, so I stopped at the last office before the residential area started--an Edward Jones investment office. It was clear no one had offered them the chance to order Girl Scout cookies recently, and the investor and his assistant pored over the form and carefully selected twelve boxes. The next year, they called me to come in and explained they ran out partway through the year and had to buy directly from the council. They doubled their order. I admit that I still fondly remember them from that time, and that I totally told this story when I started investing with Edward Jones.
Imagine my surprise that in recent years, Girl Scouts were lined up outside grocery stores and post offices. Brilliant! Even the girls who were new in town and didn't know everyone in a one-mile radius (Our family did the newspaper routes around our home. We knew everyone.) could still be part of the sales! And there were parents right there, so no one had to worry about that one ooky guy down the block! And the cookies were right there, so you know there were tons of repeat customers, sometimes on the same day. Awesome. I suddenly wanted to go back in time and explain all this to my troop leader.
This year, it's all online, so we are back to having our cookies delivered, but we don't have to pay the girls directly (they can learn cash handling next year), and our cookies will most likely be dropped at our door for contactless delivery. We've come such a long way from the ten year old shivering on your porch to convince you that Trefoils are the lowest sugar, so they're practically okay for diabetics (I was merciless. I wanted the 200-box prize so very very much.). We have lost some of the independence that the old system taught our girls, but we are still teaching them paths to success, and that is worth a lot.
Now, I'm off to convince my husband that we are definitely freezing some of these cookies I just ordered. It feels like a fool's errand.
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