After spectacularly beautiful weather in Atlanta this weekend, we were plunged back into winter today. And I was just starting to get used to the nice warm weather too. I had my all windows open enjoying the lovely breeze, we started a new garden in the yard, and I even have a newly built fire pit to roast a curried goat! (or not!) Now, rumor has it that it may snow again tonight! Snow…in Atlanta! Who would have guessed?
Just over a week ago, I was praying for another dose of snow, and another snow day. But after only two short days, I’ve become spoiled by the sunshine. It’s not that I mind the snow. I mean…a little cold weather just gives me more time for my “six weeks of winter” diet, right? And after all…spring is just around the corner.
One of the major drawbacks to the coming of spring is the arrival of the dreaded Girl Scout cookies. This weekend ushered in the official Girl Scout cookie sales launch, so the wretched things were literally EVERYWHERE! The girl scouts have been staked out in front of every grocery store and every shopping center in town. I can’t even escape them at work! Every hour or two a girl scout leader finds her way into the bank dangling a box of cookies on a stick to entice and torment me. It’s as if they know my willpower is weak.
There is, without a doubt, something unnatural about those cookies. I swear to God that Thin Mints are laced with crack! There is absolutely no other valid reason as to why I feel the overwhelming urge to inhale the entire box after tasting just one. I don’t even have the patience to dunk them in milk, like with Oreos. I’m not sure if I’m even tasting them or not. I seem to lose all rational thought when I have Thin Mints in my hands. And it’s not just Thin Mints! If I eat another peanut butter Do Si Do, I think I might burst!
I know…I know…the solution would appear to be quite simple. Stay away from them. Don’t buy them. Just say no and all that. But those cult leaders trot out the absolute cutest kids to waive the signs, and to dangle the boxes of cookies…and who can resist those little faces? It’s like running into Sally Struthers and her international children’s charity on every street corner. I can almost hear Sally now, “Just three dollars and fifty cents for a box of cookies could feed 1 child for an entire year.” And I can’t even make it through the hour with that one $3.50 box.
The problem is, once they’ve reeled you in they’ve got you. I’ve already gone through four boxes of the damn crack biscuits and they’ll be back at the bank again tomorrow, I just know it! Is it any wonder that the poor groundhog barricades himself into his burrow for six extra weeks every year! He’s trying in vain to avoid the girl scouts and their addictive cookies.
I have tried storing mine in the freezer to slow down my voracious cravings, but damn it if they don’t taste better frozen! So I decided to only eat one at a time. I carry that one cookie all the way to the sofa and sit down before I eat it. I thought, surely the extra effort to fetch more would discourage me—it didn’t. I just made more trips. A part of me thinks that might help to burn a few calories. So I started putting them in a jar above the cabinets. I have to climb a ladder when I want a cookie. If I can’t give them up, at least I can make it a workout to get to them.
I’m positive it isn’t just me who can’t resist the pull toward the temptation of the Girl Scout cookie. I have seen my coworkers scramble to the ATM to withdraw their grocery money just to spend every cent on cases of assorted cookies. I just have to wonder what the hell the girl scouts are doing with all the millions of dollars in cookie money? This has to have become a big business! After all…they even have Thin Mint ice cream now! I imagine a Girl Scout island somewhere in the South Pacific. Samoas in Samoa. Buildings constructed solely of shortbread Trefoils. Their true leader? A Willy Wonka like emperor. The only other inhabitants on this island? A tribe of Oompa Loompa like creatures dressed in ambassador sashes over tiny bikinis. I imagine them running around, laughing and playing in the surf, living off fresh fish and vegetables. What are they laughing at? They don’t even eat the cookies! Lucky bastards!
Until the next time…I’ll be starting a twelve steps anti-cookie program!