Author's Note: Yes, I know, the Girl Scout cookie sale ended several months back, but I started this article and then accidentally stuck it in my pile of "mail to answer at some point" which mostly consists of product registration cards. I, of course, never get to filling out these registration cards, since it means I'll just get on some junk mail lists and eventually buy more crap that requires me to fill out more product registration cards. So the article kind of hung out there for several months, growing mold and, eventually, sentient life forms that constructed a civilization in my butter. No, wait a sec. I'm thinking of that jar of spaghetti sauce in my fridge, but I think you get the picture.Actually, when I say "They", I don't really mean the Girl Scouts. I haven't actually seen a Girl Scout selling cookies since A-ha had airplay. Usually, it's the Girl Scout's parents that are doing all the selling. Some people complain about this; that somehow the Girl Scouts aren't learning important life skills, like doing work for themselves, or acting cute so that some dopey guy will give them money. But I think they've learned an even more important life skill: getting other people to do all the work for you.
So I was in full support of the Girl Scout cookie sale. I bought about 8 boxes of Thin Mints and 15 boxes of Samoas. (In other words, a three-day supply.) In any case, Girl Scout cookies is certainly better than the shit I had to sell as a Cub Scout.
Oh, and I mean that literally. To raise money for Cub Scout Pack 70, we had to sell fertilizer. I swear I am not making that up. I have a feeling that somebody on the Pack 70 board of directors had stock in the Anderson Fertilizer Company, Inc. It's the only explanation I can come up with for asking 3rd grade kids to sell 20-pound bags of cow manure to our neighbors, except that maybe the "Huge Pieces of Scrap Metal Sale" idea got shot down. Not that I am bitter.
No, wait. I am bitter. I mean, have you seen what Cub Scouts get to do for money these days? They have bowl-a-thons, events where they go bowling, and you give them money for every pin they knock down.
Me: Okay, let me see if I have this straight; I'm going to give you money for going bowling.So, after school for the next 2 weeks, I went around to different houses and tried too convince my neighbors to buy bags of fertilizer from me. I also tried to figure out why they were always stifling laughs when I was talking to them. I figured it was the uniform.
Cub Scout: That's right.
Me: Are you sure you don't want to have, like, a do-your-neighbor's-laundry-a-thon or something?
Cub Scout: Are you kidding? What fun would that be?
Me: (Thinks about this) Here's 10 bucks.
Cub Scout: Will you pay for my shoes, too?
Of course, I didn't just do this out of love for the Cub Scouts. I mean, sure, the Cub Scouts were a great place to learn about honor, honesty, and compassion. More importantly, they were a great place to exchange dirty jokes with our peers. (These jokes mostly involved some kid seeing his parents having sex. We didn't really understand them most of the time, but they were funny nonetheless.) But that wasn't enough. And it's not like my parents pushed me to sell more bags of fertilizer than anybody else. My mom knew that if I did, she'd just get more stuff to sew on to my uniform, and my dad knew that he'd be the one helping me deliver these 20-pound bags of fertilizer all over town. (Basically, I think Cub Scouts was just a way to keep all of our parents busy and out of trouble.)
No, the reason I was so motivated was because the person who sold the most bags of fertilizer got... a digital watch. And not just any digital watch, but a five function digital watch. This is assuming that time counts as three functions: hours, minutes, seconds. And the date counts as two functions: month and day. I could imagine my superiority over the other kids on the playground.
Kids: Hey, Billy! What time is it on your two function digital watch?Unfortunately, my mom never let me have a digital watch, using that great Parental Logic that parents have somehow mastered...
Billy: Umm... well, it's 11-something, and the month is March...
Me: (Strolling in with a couple of bikini-clad women on each arm) Hey, boys. Looks like someone could use a few more functions on his watch...
Kids: Wow! It's Todd and his digital watch! Let's invite him to all our parties!
Me: Mom, can I have a digital watch?I figure that's what parents really learn in lamaze class. They fake all the childbirth stuff the first few minutes to scare everybody else away, then the instructor gets out the Big Book of Secret Parenting Tricks where they learn, among other things, great parental logic arguments including the classic, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you too?" (Although the way I see it, I have pretty bright friends and if they ever jumped off a cliff, they'd probably have a very good reason.)
My mother: No, not until you can tell time on a normal clock.
Me: But I can tell time on a normal clock!
My mother: Then you don't need a digital watch.
Me: (No possible response)
Incidentally, what do you think lemming parents say to their kids? "If all your friends decided not to jump off a cliff, would you?" Just a thought.
In the end, though, I didn't sell quite enough bags of fertilizer to win any prizes. Apparently there are some kids who are better at selling bags of manure than myself. (I think I've seen these people in the Sales and Marketing department.) But I did get my digital watch that Christmas. I guess Santa decided I had worked hard enough to earn it after all.
Also, I bribed him with a box of Thin Mints.