Times are tough. Everyone is looking down to see if they see a shiny copper-colored coin, and it doesn’t even matter if the guy is face-up these days. I’m grateful that the check in the mail really was in the mail, and that no one’s strap broke and let “the girls” loose at the Golden Globes last night. But, I am MOST grateful that I am a 38-year-old Girl Scout. Let me rephrase that. I was grateful…

See, this is Madison’s first year in Daisies, and mine too. Sure, when I was young I wore a brown little cap and held my three fingers high, but that was a gazillion light years ago. I never was a Daisy. I don’t even think the Girl Scouts had Daisies way back when. In fact, we were lucky we had enough girls to make a Brownie troop when I grew up. Of course, I’m senile and could be mistaken…which brings me to the point of this blog: I forgot about this time of year.

You know, the time of year when you go to the grocery store to pick up a 1/2 gallon of skim milk and a pack of Juicy Fruit and 15 girls, dolled in pigtails and ponytails, attack you and shove colorful boxes at you like cannibals with spears? Are you quivering under the afghan your Great-Grandmother gave you at the thought? Yes, it is that time of year. You have been warned!

Although I can’t don the tiny blue Daisy vest (with patches that I think we’ve lost somewhere along the way), I am invested in the line, “Each box is $3.50. And, if you don’t want the calories you can send them to the troops overseas.” My daughter told me that she wants the “Miranda Panda”, which she has to sell 200 boxes in order to get. So far, including orders from Grandparents, we are at a whopping…er, 38. It’s a good year to spring, “It’s the effort that counts!” (Said as I hand her the 2010 Bear Patch and pat her on the top of her head of course.)

We are new to our neighborhood. (Just moved in a year and a half ago, but we don’t get out much so it’s still pretty new to us.) As a Daisy, the kids are only supposed to sell to friends and family. What the Girl Scouts of America don’t know, is that half of our family has Celiac disease and the other half has Diabetes. Not a good odds for a 5-year-old trying to earn a $5 stuffed bear with a green t-shirt on. Just sayin’. Sure, we could try to sell to our neighbors, but I’m not sure if I’m ready for the older nudist couple, who lives next door with two German Sheppards, shunning us because we are pushing thin mints. Seriously. That, or the young couple across the street, who just had a baby, giving us the “Sorry eyes” over Samoas.

I take rejection like a man in a bathroom stall… standing up…and behind closed doors, when no one is around, it’s not a pretty sight. I just DON’T like asking people to buy stuff. Yes, perhaps the reason why three months before I gave birth to my daughter, I signed the dotted line to sell Mary Kay. (Apparently osmosis and internal chanting of “Buy…buy…BUY” do not do very well. There is a marketing term for that though. It’s called failure.) Oh the PRESSURE!!!

So…with reckless abandon at 2:10am, like a spy on a mission, I am secretly pack the Girl Scout cookie order form inside my husband’s briefcase. Shhhh….I’m a 38-year-old rebel without with a cause….because oooooo…look! 1300 boxes will get me er…Madison an 8-Gig iPod Nano. *secretly chanting, “Buy…buy…BUY” as I close the clasp and write him a note to ask if anyone in the office wants a box…or two…or three.. of Tagalongs or Trefoils.*