After my dad retired, my parents decided to downsize. The way my mother cleared out her house, it looked like a liquidation sale—everything had to go. That’s when she gave me my green Girl Scout dress; the official scout patch still on the sleeve.
I stared at the dress and said, “You kept my scout uniform?”
She shrugged? “Guess I thought you’d want it someday.”
Why she thought I'd want that uniform, I don’t know? After all, the dress no longer fit, considering the last time I wore it, I was nine years old.
Thinking back, the only reason I even joined the scouts was for the cookies.๐ช I mean who didn’t love the thin mints, and the peanut butter sandwich cookies, particularly my dad, who I knew would help me sell a boatload of cookies. And I was doing just that, going door to door selling cookies when I stopped at a neighbor’s house, a woman I refer to as Mrs. Whipple. ๐ต
After I gave my sales pitch, Mrs. Whipple gasped when she heard the price.
She then informed me that her daughter had sold cookies back in the 1950s when they were only thirty-five cents a box. The cost of my cookies— a whopping fifty cents. That did not sit well with Mrs. Whipple. As she saw it, a fifteen cent increase in a box of scout cookies was an insult to every American consumer, as if it were my fault there was a hike in the cookie price.
Afterward, I ran home and cried ๐ข to my dad, telling him about old lady Mrs. Whipple. It riled him up so much, he bought four more boxes of thin mints. Can’t remember how much money I raised for my troop, but looking back, a percentage of that money should have gone toward the therapy I needed after being traumatized by Mrs. Whipple.
After that I quit the scouts. If I had my way, I would have burned the uniform, but for whatever reason my mother decided to keep it. And after she passed it on to me, I stored it in a cedar chest up in the attic all these years. Not once have I needed that uniform, nor did I ever think about it. Until this year, 2022.
My two granddaughters joined a local Girl Scout troop, and lo and behold if my old uniform didn’t make its way out of the attic where I showed it off to my two sweet girls. And now they’re selling cookies, and to my delight, I bought a total of ten boxes, five from each granddaughter.
And for the record, the cookies have now gone up to five dollars ๐ต a box! A huge jump since the 1960s. Just don’t tell Mrs. Whipple, otherwise, she might get mad and blow fuse. If so, I’ll offer her a box of shortbread cookies, along with Aunt Claudine’s southern ice tea. ๐ตMaybe that will sweeten her up. If not there’s always the thin mints.
May you always enjoy your favorite Girl Scout cookies!
