Girl Scout troops in Michigan sold 1000 boxes of cookies last week outside the Walled Lake marijuana dispensary. Their plans to return to the lucrative location were squashed by the Girl Scouts of the United States of America organization, who erroneously claimed they weren’t allowed to sell outside an establishment they couldn’t enter. Jerry Millen, Greenhouse of Walled Lake’s kindly owner, took pity on the young girls and purchased 300 boxes of cookies to pass out to his customers for free, citing the difficulty of fundraising during the pandemic as his reason.
Preventing people from buying delicious Thin Mints, the best GS cookie is a real buzzkill. I’ve got mine, made at the superior Little Brownie Bakery, stashed in the freezer.
Share your Girl Scout Cookie thoughts.
Tagalongs are trash.
Thin Mints and Trefoils are the only good GS cookies.
You’re trash.
LOL, a Tagalong fan I take it.
Tagalongs are one of my top two, along with Samoas. Followed by thin mints, followed by do-si-dos and trefoils.
I enjoyed Girl Scouts. My first real camping trip (as in tents, not cabins) and learning to make a fire was with them. I must have my old sash in a box somewhere.
Most people love Samoas but they’re too sweet for me. I never did Scouts. My daughter briefly did but it wasn’t a good troop for her. She wanted to do the camping and outdoor stuff, all they did was craft.
We definitely did a ton of crafting too. So many friendship bracelets haha.
…I don’t know that I have girl-scout-specific cookie thoughts…but I guess I have plenty of cookie thoughts…some no doubt controversial…like cookies are better than dough…& chocolate chips are better than healthy additions like nuts or whatever…& giant cookies are a good thing… although that one surely can’t be controversial
…but I do think the troop 6000 thing that was set up for girls whose families are homeless is kind of amazing & I hope they sold truckloads of cookies
I agree with all of this. Chocolate chips cookies don’t need any fancy add in like nuts or dried fruit. They are perfect as they are. And there’s nothing wrong with a giant cookie.
Seriously. Adding nuts to a chocolate chip cookie is just, imho, loading it with more calories.
I’m with you mostly. I don’t know if I can fully sign on to cookies being better than dough. I like having both in my life, and my opinion varies.
Maryland started a program called Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, which is essentially a Girl Scout troop for girls whose mothers are incarcerated. They meet at the women’s prison in Jessup so the mothers can participate.
That’s wonderful. Girls Scouts is one of the few activities girls can get involved in without spending a lot of money. Even some teams require gear beyond the standard uniform – matching warm up jackets for instance. And they often expect members to participate in fund raisers. And if you don’t have the money to buy the stupid wrapping paper and novelty crap there’s a good chance your relatives and neighbors don’t either. I’m pretty happy with Girl scouts and their delicious cookies.
Those Girl Scouts are smart and know where to sell. Greed is good, but Thin Mints are better.
I sure as hell wouldn’t have been that entrepreneurial enough to figure that out when I was that young. Still not entrepreneurial enough.
Seriously, way to stomp on their entrepreneurial spirit GS of the USA! Everyone loves one stop shopping – weed and snacks at the same place is a winning combination.
When I was growing up the Girl Scouts set up tables outside supermarkets (people are typically a little hungry going in) and liquor stores (it was a more freewheeling age and patrons had already knocked back a couple or more before replacing their stock).
Notionally, a Girl Scout couldn’t enter a weed dispensary on their own, but IN MY DAY (Grandpa Simpson yells at clouds) when I was maybe 14 or 15 and my next youngest sister, who would have been about 12, used to run errands for neighbors for pocket change. We’d hop on our bikes as a duo and pick up cigarettes and liquor, no questions asked, because we weren’t the only youths running this proto-DoorDash operation.
I’ll join you in yelling at clouds. I used to buy cigarettes for my dad too. And pour beers, mix drinks for company. Just like Sally did in Mad Men.
When I was in the 5th grade we lived on a military base & my dad would golf w/ the top general of the base. They had me caddie for them & drive the cart. They would send me to get them beers & snacks! I can’t imagine the kind of shitstorm that would set off today! The snack bar people were just like, we know who you are with so here you go.
You couldn’t do that today. It sounds like fun.
I wasn’t allowed to ask my kid to get me a beer, because DARE.
My daughter came home from Kindergarten upset because coffee was a drug. She hounded me for a week about it.
I think you would be failing in your duty as a parent if you ever let her forget this. 🙂
@lochaber I’d forgotten until it came up here but I intend to give her shit about it now.
Girl Scout Cookies are a seasonal treat – they are smart to limit availability, it increases demand. And @SplinterRip, I see zero controversy in your cookie thoughts!
Girl Scout Cookies are fine, but I feel bad for Boy Scouts. As far as I can tell they never came up with a fundraiser anywhere near as popular. We occasionally get neighborhood boy scouts selling crappy popcorn mixes or something, and I’ll put in a small pity order, but the dads always tell me what an ordeal it is to get any interest.
Meanwhile people will go to a card table selling Girl Scout cookies and drop $50 without a second’s thought.
I used to have to buy the terrible, overpriced popcorn from my next door neighbor. I was so happy when he quit Boy Scouts.
I hate the giant thing of stale popcorn! We hide when we see boy scouts come to the door except at Christmas when they recycle Christmas trees.
It’s always stale!
Boy Scouts of America are trash.
Initially founded as a proto-fascist, para-military organization, too much adherence to religion and “tradition”, and a few different flavors of bigotry baked in.
I tried the Boy Scouts thing as a kid, and I was just… disgusted? I imagine a lot is up to local leadership, but the troops/chapters/whatever in my area were horrible. Excessive bullying, animal abuse and cruelty, lots of dangerous “pranks” (fire crackers and aerosol cans in campfires, etc.) and very little-to-no skills practice.
Girl Scouts seem to have been consistently being a better organization, and encouraging their members to be better people from what I’ve seen. Generally more inclusive and adaptable.
Right? Who doesn’t love a GIANT cookie?
That was for @Elliecoo
Girl Scout cookies are garbage. I’ll buy cookies from bakeries or coffee shops, or make them myself.
The GSA is a weird-ass group. Had a good friend working on the local GS council here, and she bailed due to the instability of some folks there.
From what I can tell based on my daughter’s halfhearted participation, they are extremely decentralized, so some of the troops are run by raging Kare… uh… dictators, and other leaders take the approach of handing the kids notebooks, sending them out the door for a couple of hours to draw pictures while the moms drink wine, and then reconvening to hand out badges for something or other.
I seem to remember some contests linked to sales that kind of soured us on the cookie sales. My daughters hated asking people to buy things so we didn’t last long in Girl Scouts. It was very Karen clickish in our area.
This is exactly it. There are supposed to be some overarching principles, but largely who the group is is determined by its local leaders (almost always some troop moms) and their motivations.
Heretic!
Anytime you get a group of parents together there’s going to be drama – teams, scouts,dance troops, PTA. A friend’s son was in Quiz Bowl and the level of crazy was hilarious.
…so I was never in the scouts as a kid…& I don’t think I knew anyone who was growing up…but the cookie thing always made me think they had a better rep in the states than they did where I grew up…much like the idea of summer camp, really…which I have heard many fond recollections of from friends & relatives but which you couldn’t have paid me to attend in the all too brief window I wasn’t expected to live at school
…baden-powell who founded the thing was maybe not without flaws (think his sister started the girl scouts but not sure) & various scandals of a tragically predictable nature had happened by the time I was a kid so I don’t think the suggestion ever came up, even
…on the whole I think I’m a fan of the “be prepared” approach…if not to the point of being a full-on doomsday prepper…but part of me has always found the cookie-selling thing to be reminiscent of a kind of dark story that these days would be called YA fiction
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (…there was a sequel too, I think…but it’s the first one I really remember)
…& since I’m straying way off point I’d add that The Bumblebee Flies Anyway was also pretty great…& I Am The Cheese…don’t know if it’s something everyone my age-ish grew up with in the US but I don’t think he was all that well known in the UK…I was recommended the chocolate war by family in the states & kind of went through all his stuff…somewhere around the time I read Where The Red Fern Grows…so…fun times?
I could be wrong, but I don’t think there’s any connection between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. GSA definitely started as a reaction to BSA, to have something similar for girls, but it was someone else creating an all new organization, with no affiliation.
BSA has been rocked by a fair amount of scandals over the years, but GSA hasn’t really. I knew some guys who were in the Boy Scouts long term though (like through high school, whereas no one I knew stayed in Girl Scouts past about age 12), and they were lovely outdoorsy people. Being a part of the organization (especially when you started as a little kid) doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with the shitty views or gross conduct of some of the people at the top.
…I think I’d agree with all of that…although the way I heard it the lady who started the girl scouts in the states did it after meeting baden-powell…who I think had a hand in the founding of the boys’ version in the US, too…honestly, though…that’s based on a half-recollection of something I didn’t pay much attention to a long time ago so it’s very possibly wrong on all counts?
(…technically I think they are/were called girl guides in the UK, at least originally…& I believe to some degree both boys’ & girls’ versions are all part of some sort of international umbrella group…or at least I think that’s what I remember being told…like I say, a long time ago & with me not paying a lot of attention)
That could very well be true. And I have heard of girl guides being the version in the UK, and maybe Canada? I don’t think they’re at all affiliated with the US groups. There’s another similar group too… with something vaguely offensive having to do with Native Americans? I think maybe they’re a thing elsewhere in the US.
OK, I decided to do some googling before posting. I think I’m talking about Camp Fire, which has some weird practices including encouraging troops to name themselves after tribes.
Lemonades are the best.
And to think I used to respect you, SMDH.
I hated selling all that shit so much, I started Beer Scouts. Much easier sales…
That kid is a real pro. I couldn’t have gotten half those lines out without cracking up.
He was a regular on The Man Show back in the day. He had some of the best segments.
That looks like Andy Milonakis. He was (RIP) a grown man who looked like a youth.
You made me google Andy Milonakis, who I have not thought about in a very long time, and who seems to still be alive…
Oh my goodness! Why did I think he’d died in the Aughts or early Teens?
Update: A rumour was spread enough that it must have made a semi-credible website where I saw the headline back in the day. https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/3iaubx/did_andy_milonakis_ever_die/
FAKE NEWS!
The daughter of a dear friend was the cookie mom for her daughter’s troop from Brownie age through fourth grade. She was wrangling 2,500 boxes in her garage, but she had a spreadsheet! They moved, and she is glad to see it go, but she took on the role of cookie mom because she couldn’t deal with the drama… southern drama at that, she was living in South Carolina, bless your heart.
They only thing worse than being a Scout mom in the South is being a pageant mom in the South!
I’m with you on everything apart from the fact that Samoas are the best cookies.
I like coconut, I like caramel and chocolate. But all of it together is just too much for me.
Nothing against girl scout cookies, not a big cookie fan, as an adult I’d rather have a piece of fruit for dessert or maybe some figs or dates. What I do have issue with is sending children out to sell shit on street corners, I fucking hate that, such a bad bad look. More evidence of how deeply fucked up murican priorities are.