It’s one of my favorite times of year. Granted, I hate trudging through snow to get to and from class. But my annual reward for all of this is curling up on my couch and devouring box after box of Thin Mints until I pass out.
That’s right — it’s Girl Scout Cookie season. It’s the time when adolescent girls canvas the streets with their arms full of colorful boxes, hawking their wares to passers-by.
A part of me has always felt guilty supporting something as quaint as a cookie sale. If Boy Scouts subsist largely on donor contributions, shouldn’t their female counterparts be soliciting corporate sponsorship or at least selling something a little less trite?
Then I heard about Cookie Boot Camp.
An article from Cox News Service reports that thousands of scouts are trained in money management, basic accounting and how to deal with tough customers. The girls are provided with stock responses that, coming from an 8 year old, seem both surprising and irresistible.
Watching your weight? They’ll offer low-fat Lemon Coolers.
Don’t like sweets? Your salesgirl will suggest that you buy some and donate them to a local food bank.
It’s only a matter of time before each girl has a wireless credit-card machine in her backpack for those who claim they don’t have any cash with them.
The cookies seem to be a facade, a way to put you at ease before the scout corners you for cash.
Below the surface the girls are learning the ins and outs of free-market capitalism. If they can sell an extra box to an unsuspecting customer by flashing a smile, then the real truths of American consumerism are revealed.
Weinberg senior and former Scout Amy Small never took part in any training sessions. Instead her Scout Mom told her to “look really cute” when approaching potential customers.
But looking cute won’t get the job done anymore. According to the Girl Scouts Web site, learning life skills such as “goal setting, money management and teamwork” is what the cookie sale is all about.
Girlscouts.org claims “many successful business women today say they got their start selling Girl Scout Cookies.” I’m not surprised. Although Cookie Boot Camp might be a new creation, the concept of teaching young girls to be entrepreneurs has always been an intrinsic part of the cookie-sale process.
Gone are the days when Girl Scouts emulated TV housewives such as Donna Reed and June Cleaver. Multimedia moguls such as Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey seem to be the role models of today’s scouts.
In other words, you don’t have to feel guilty about supporting repressive gender roles whenever you buy a box of cookies from that Girl Scout standing outside the Barnes & Noble on Sherman Avenue.
The only reason to feel guilty is if you devour the box in 10 minutes, like I do.
