A Mother’s Quest For Girl Scout Cookies; A Saga

Day 1:

It’s Friday. Yesterday I received a message that my five-year-old had purchased two boxes of cookies through her classmate.

Great.

I’ve side-stepped them at the grocery stores, ignored texts from my cute nieces about their troops, hid on the floor when the buggers knocked on my door like they were Jehovah’s Witnesses selling me scripture–and yet they’ve found me.

The Girl Scouts have made it through my defenses.

I sent my daughter to school with a five-dollar bill and instructions that she is only to purchase ONE box, and that she cannot open it until she gets home. I make sure to get Samoa‘s, you know, the coconut ones that taste like dirt. Maybe that will be less tempting for me in my fragile state.

Friends, let me tell you–Girl Scout Cookie season with a dairy allergy is a real bitch.

All year long I have to watch other people eat desserts and that’s OK. There are dairy-free equivalents to most things and I was never much of a sweets person anyway. Except for the Thin Mint.

The Thin Mint holds a delicate balance between crunch and softness; the chocolate and the mint are expertly at odds with each other in a way that no other cookie has been able to recreate. You can’t buy a knock-off version because there is none.

There is only the Thin Mint.

It’s been ten years. Ten long, behemoth expanses of time in which I have not had the taste of a Thin Mint on my tongue. It has been literally a decade since I’ve heard that tell-tale crunch or felt the stickiness of the outer layer of chocolate upon my two front teeth. I’ve learned to live without it but the longing is still there, lingering beneath the surface.

I watched my family eating their Samoa’s. They were smiling. Their hands delicately held the cookies like pieces of treasure and even the baby was giggling, adorned in a mustache made purely of chocolate. I sat sulking in the corner and decided to Google if there had been any great breakthroughs in the area of making a vegan Thin Mint.

And the first search result read, “For the first time this year, Thin Mint cookies are vegan.”

I gasped. A lone tear rolled down my cheek. Jumping from my chair I shoved the phone into my husband’s face. LOOK! I screamed. THEY ARE VEGAN NOW. I may have done a dance…I was very excited so the moment is a blur. Quickly I texted the mom from earlier today.

Is it true? I asked. Are Thin Mints dairy-free now?

One simple word changed my world forever.

Yes.

I WOULD LIKE TO BUY THREE BOXES. I AM SO EXCITED. I wrote to her. And then I sat quietly back down in my chair. Because today is Friday. And I can’t get them until school on Monday.

Day 2:

I woke up this morning thinking about cookies. As I re-painted the walls of my daughter’s bedroom, I thought about the ways I could eat my Thin Mints. I could dip them Soy Milk. Or in my coffee. I could put them in the freezer and eat them chilled. They would be delicious on top of ice cream.

I hit up Home Depot. I drove past Trader Joe’s and Albertsons. Slowly I cruised past Smart and Final. No Girl Scouts. Those little pests are everywhere when you don’t want a cookie, and when you do want one it’s like they’ve been called back into headquarters by the Cookie Master herself.

After dinner, the Samoa’s came out again. As before, I sat in the corner and watched my family eat their dessert with a mix of hatred and resentment. My husband put the kids down for bed and I sat on the couch thinking about ways to get a cookie fix before the buy I had set up on Monday.

I could text the mom from school and see if I could come to pick them up from her house. But it’s 8 pm on a Saturday night and that seems kind of creepy. I don’t know her very well and

a) asking to have the location of her house and

b) admitting that I want a cookie that bad are both troubling.

I try downloading the Girl Scout App the CookieFinder; it says there are none in my area.

I login to our neighborhood website and post a pathetic message on the group board that reads something like, “NEED GIRL SCOUT COOKIES ASAP. ANY IN OUR AREA?!” No one replies.

Like any addict without a dealer, I finally turn to the darkest search option available to me: Craigslist. I realize as I search that I have hit a new low, but my shame is not outweighed by my intense desire to eat a Thin Mint. I hold my breath as the results came in.

In a twist of sad irony, the only posts on Craigslist that pop up are for Marijuana. Apparently one of the popular strains right now is called “Girl Scout Cookie”. So myself, and every stoner in the greater San Diego area are clicking rapidly through ad after ad for weed. But unlike me, they can get their fix.

 

At 11 pm I give up.

Day 3: 

It is Sunday. There’s only one more day until my buy from the legit Girl Scout at my daughter’s school. But that feels like a long time away.

Again I go in search for their booth but come home depressed and empty handed.

Just hang on until tomorrow, I tell myself.

Day 4:

Finally. It is Monday. I get my cookies today! I ordered three boxes. Fifteen bucks.

I can’t find cash. (I really should have planned this better. You’d think with all the time I had spent this weekend, it would have occurred to me to get money out of the ATM.) I remember that I have one check from our new bank account– so I grab it as I push the kids out of the door for school.

Sitting in the drop-off line, I start filling out the check. I put the mom’s name. I put the date. I carefully write $15 in the amount tab. At the bottom, I get so excited that I write COOKIES! in what I think is the memo line. But when I go to sign my name I realize my error; Thin Mint Fever has taken over and like a shmuck I’ve written my greatest desire where I should have written my name.

Frantically I go through the whole car and find $10– cold, hard, cash. I tuck the money into my daughter’s backpack and tell her to make sure she gives it to the dealer– ahem classmate’s– mom.

I wonder if this is like a drug deal and I will only get two boxes. Girl Scouts probably don’t accept IOU’s.

The mom texts me a couple of hours later: She only gave me ten dollars…

I could make something up, but I don’t. Instead, I tell her the miserable truth: in my utter excitement for Thin Mints I had messed up the check. I promise I’ll get her the money. But just please, please send the cookies.

Time ticks slowly by. I go to Starbucks first to get a coffee so that I will be all set up for the greatest moment in my life– the taste of the Thin Mint mixed with hot, dank coffee. It is raining and in San Diego, this means that people drive very slowly and no one goes outside. The pickup line is long, even though I am early.

COOKIES! I sing waiting for my daughter. I AM GOING TO HAVE COOKIES! IN MY MOUTH. THEY ARE GOING TO BE IN MY MOUTH IN A MINNNNUUUUUTTTTTEEEEE!!!! 

The school attendant opens up my car door and places my daughter inside. In slow motion, I glance back over my shoulder at my daughter holding her lunch box. And nothing else.

NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I scream. WHERE ARE THE COOKIES?!

Oh. I forgot them, my daughter says. She plops down in her car seat like the world hasn’t ended and begins to hum.

Where are the cookies? I ask again, my voice quivering. I am trying very, very hard to keep calm.

I was really busy today getting ready to leave school, she mumbles. Guess I forgot them in my cubby!

In desperation, I look around. The parking lot is full. Street parking is full. I am stuck in a long line of parents trying to exit the school. I calculate the time it will take me to leap from my vehicle, make it through the school gates, into her classroom, grab the cookies and run back out.

I quickly come to the conclusion that CPS might be called. How would they respond if I tell them about my desperation for a Thin Mint? Would there be any understanding? I look back in the rearview mirror at the angelic faces of my three babies and like the bold, selfless mother that I am, I stay in the car with them and give up on that particular stash of Thin Mints.

For now.

Tears roll down my cheeks as I watch the raindrops bounce off of the windshield and Adele sings, Someone Like You. Not to be a narcissist, but as I listen I’m pretty sure Adele and I are on the same page and that the whole song is actually written about a cookie situation like the one I am currently in. Check out these lyrics:

Old friend {THIN MINT}, why are you so shy?
Ain’t like you to hold back or hide from the light.{BECAUSE GIRL SCOUTS ARE EVERYWHERE}

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited {ON CRAIGSLIST, AT SCHOOL}
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it. {CLEARLY THIS IS ABOUT A COOKIE}
I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
That for me it isn’t over.{CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP WANTING THAT COOKIE}

Nothing compares {TO THE TASTE OF A THIN MINT}
No worries or cares {WHEN YOU ARE EATING A THIN MINT}
Regrets and mistakes
They are memories made. {WHEN YOU HAVE A THIN MINT}
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste? {EATING A GOD DAMN THIN MINT}

Has your mind been blown?

I have to make a grocery store run. My one last hope is that some brave troop of scouts will dismiss the pesky rain as a nuisance and set up camp somewhere in my vicinity. So I drive. Around and around and around. And you know what? NO COOKIES FOR ME.

Day 5:

I send my daughter to school with that $5 I still owe. I try to be gentle but persistent when I remind her about grabbing the cookies after school. I use the good ol’ Jedi Mind trick; You will bring the cookies home from school with you.

I use imagery; when you see your lunch box and grab it to leave, remember that there should be cookies, too. I even use a little guilt and shout as she exits the car, It’ll be great when we can eat those cookies after school! Don’t forget them! Mommy is really looking forward to it!

The parking lot attendant glances back at me and I see my reflection in her eyes. It isn’t pretty. I am a thirty-something woman dressed in pajamas with what could be gum stuck on one side of my bangs. I have dark circles under my eyes from all the Craigslist searching and I don’t have on any makeup because my free time this morning has been spent trying to engrave into a young person’s brain the importance of bringing cookies for her mama. I am hanging my head out the window and shouting across the parking lot at my little darling, telling her that I love her but also that she better remember to bring me my Thin Mints.

I’ve had prouder moments.

So I go home. And I wait. When it is time to leave for pickup, my heart is racing. There are butterflies in my stomach and I feel like something really important is going to happen to me. I wait patiently in the line and try not to crane my neck to sneak a peek. I tell myself that I have to be nice and calm, no matter what the outcome is.

The door to the car opens. DID YOU BRING THE COOKIES?! I shout.

My lovely, beaming child lifts a bag up and in it sit three boxes of Thin Mints.

My friends helped me carry them, she proudly says. I dropped them a couple of times though.

That’s OK baby, I say. You did great.

I am so excited. I realize that I am clapping.

 

If you liked this post, you will probably enjoy Mommy Fail #2374