Why I’m Buying Girl Scout Cookies By the Case This Year

Photo | Flickr user Brian via Creative Commons

There are a couple reasons I buy Girl Scout cookies by the case.

For one, they are the most perfect and beautiful cookie in all the land, an almost otherworldly balance of chocolate and wafer and dreams come true. If David Bowie were to return to us as a cookie, it would be as a Thin Mint.

Secondly, I’ve found that Girl Scout cookies appreciate in value as the months go on, and come fall, can actually be used as currency. Bitcoin might be circling the drain, but if you have a freezer full of Do-Si-Dos in November? Well, friend, you’re in charge.

But also, and I very rarely say this, it’s about more than cookies. The Girl Scouts, Tagalongs or no Tagalongs, will always have a place in my heart.

I joined the Girl Scouts at 9 after an extremely brief career as a Camp Fire Girl — my school’s Catholic-friendly knock-off version that insisted on square dancing — and didn’t hang up my sash until I was 14. In fact, I’d probably still be a Girl Scout if I hadn’t been unceremoniously outed in front of what felt like the entire eighth grade. (You know who you are, sir, and if you’re reading, I still want my membership pin back. Girl Scout’s honor, it will be mine again.)

It wasn’t that our meetings were particularly exciting. There were plenty of weeks where we abandoned lame crafting projects and snuck out to get water ice. For the most part, our trips were nothing to write home about. Even when we remembered the Duraflame logs, my troop was made up of Northeast Philly girls, and we were more inclined to microwave s’mores than start an actual bonfire at Camp Laughing Waters.

But this was almost besides the point. Because while the Girl Scouts do offer badges in everything from financial literacy to screenwriting as well as trips all over the world, what they really offer is a place for young women to gather, once a week, and be nothing but themselves. For some people, this meant learning leadership skills while preparing for careers as presidential candidates, Academy Award winners and Secretaries of State. For me, it meant giggling over Gimp while forgetting, ever so briefly, that I was six inches too tall and rocking glasses the size of my face.

Although scouting seems almost quaint in 2016, the Girl Scouts have proven, time and time again, that they’re as relevant as ever. When a benefactor last year stipulated that a $100,000 donation couldn’t be used to support transgender girls, the Girl Scouts of Western Washington handed it back — despite the fact that the “gift” would have accounted for a third of their financial assistance program — and launched the screw-you-kindly hashtag #ForEVERYGirl. (They more than tripled the amount of the forfeited donation through a crowd-funding campaign, allowing 1,689 low-income girls to join the Girl Scouts.)

The Girl Scouts of Western Washington are why I’ll be buying my first case of Thin Mints this year, a purchase that directly funds the local troop that my neighbor’s daughters belong to. The second case goes out to the Cookie Cot, a yawn of a boycott protesting the Girl Scouts’ alleged partnership with Planned Parenthood — a rumor stemming from the fact that the Girl Scouts, unlike some classrooms, teach young women about sexual health.

As for the third case? Well, the fact that it’s a Tuesday is enough for me when it comes to Thin Mints. Would I like to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies? Absolutely, girls. Absolutely.

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