by Natalie Faulk

Created on: September 12, 2007

Aaaaarrrrrggghhhhhh! Please don't even mention Thin Mints. I was a Girl Scout, many moons ago when cookies were $.50 per box. Yes, folks, you heard right, $.50 per box. Now they are something crazy like $4.50 per box for what, 12 cookies? That's about $.35 each for a cookie the size of a quarter.

Anyway, my British grandmother, who had a proclivity for "biscuits", wanted her precious granddaughter to win the cookie challenge every year, so she would purchase enough boxes of Thin Mints and ONLY Thin Mints to propel me to the head of the troop.

Every time I would visit my grandparents, she offered Thin Mints. "Would you like a snack dear?"

"Um, yes please. Can I have an apple, or some spinach, or liver?" I cautiously queried.

"Oh honey, how about some Thin Mints and milk?" And I couldn't say no I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.

And so it began. Every year at "cookie time" (and there were two selling "seasons" per year), I would try not to say anything around my grandma; until, that is, she would phone me and say, "Honey, I saw Girl Scouts selling cookies at the grocery store today. Is YOUR troop selling them yet?" Gulp. "I'll take 142 boxes of Thin Mints."

I even wrote to the Girl Scouts of America, begging them to stop selling Thin Mints. Anything but Thin Mints, I pleaded. You don't understand... They would then tell me how successful Thin Mint sales were over the years, and I just wanted to scream, "Yes, because my grandma buys them ALL!" My pleading and tears and juvenile diabetes did nothing to sway them. To this day, Thin Mints are still the most popular Girl Scout cookie around; and to this day, I shudder when it's "cookie time."

Four years later, after two years as a Brownie and two years as a Junior, I retired from girl scouting. And what was my pension? Thin Mints for the next 16 years because, did you know, if you freeze them they last FOREVER?!?!

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