Camp Fire Candy & Girl Scout Cookies

I was a Camp Firl girl, myself, but I have to say that the Girl Scout Cookies are far superior to the candy that we had to peddle to our neighbors.

Many years ago, the GS finally got it right...forget the old way of taking pre-orders for the cookies...just distribute a large amount of cookie boxes to the various troops and have the girls sell them around town. I let the GS set up a table outside my store a couple Sundays ago, and I bought cookies outside a Kroger store Friday night and outside a Blockbuster Saturday night.

I remember getting the shiny Camp Fire Candy order sheet each fall, my head dizzy with dreams of how I'd pay for two full weeks of summer camp by selling some obscene number of boxes. My dreams were short lived, as I was a rather unattractive child, tall for her age, and awkward looking in her cute little uniform, with not much success tapping on the doors of the neighborhood. I think I usually reached about 35-50 boxes of candy sold each year...just enough to get a stuffed animal or pen or some such trinket. I knew it was junk even then.

But still every year, I tried. That's back when it was still safe for a young kid to ride her bike around the neighborhood and knock on strangers' doors. Any sane parent wouldn't think of allowing their kid to do that alone in a big city these days.

So I applaud the GS for trying to raise money with a mighty tasty cookie or two or two billion. My favorites are the caramel ones, the peanut butter patty ones, and the thin mints. I encourage you to pay the exhorbitant $3.50/box if you happen to come across these young ladies peddling their brightly colored boxes some time in the near future. Who the hell knows what the money goes toward; the cookies taste good, and sometimes that's just enough.