It’s Girl Scouts Cookie Time!

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Unwelcomed Solicitors,

and Two Welcomed Ones

If you are like me, you have too many salespeople knocking on your front door.

Solar panels, cable TV and satellite services, house painting and more are all pitched. “We can save you money,” they say.

And: “We just installed (fill-in-the-product) for your neighbors and knew we’d be doing you a favor by interrupting your dinner to let you know!”

I try to be polite with my “No, thanks” although the other day I fell short.

The incident occurred shortly after we had a drought-resistant landscape completed in our front “yard.” Featuring a cornucopia of cactuses, succulents, flowers, a new tree, and a dry riverbed of rock, I half-expect a photographer for “Sunset” magazine to ring our doorbell.

Instead, it was a solicitor asking if I wanted him to mow our lawn.

“You just walked past that desert landscaping – do you see any grass?” I asked, sarcasm dripping at a far heavier flow than the new underground irrigation system.

On rare occasions, however, I do welcome a salesperson at my door. Specifically, this time of year when it’s a Girl Scout hawking cookies.

While I’m still waiting for this year’s annual Samoas and Tagalongs sales calls, let me share a memorable visit from a year past. Two or three Girl Scouts, each more adorable than the previous, had already capitalized on my sweet tooth. After nineteen years in the same house, I think the young green-vested army knows I’m a pushover.

Early one evening yet another Thin Mints-selling soldier came knocking. Surprisingly, however, it was a boy selling Girl Scout Cookies.

As if reading my mind, he told me he wasn’t a Girl Scout but his sister was. He was helping her because this was the last day of sales and she hadn’t reached her goal.

“She fell off her skateboard and hurt her hands,” the boy explained.

Perhaps it was a con and I was being played for a sucker, but I nevertheless excused myself to retrieve my wallet. When I returned, the brother had been joined by his sister.

Not only was the skateboard injury real, it was fresh. “It happened today,” she told me, holding out both hands, palms up. Each was badly skinned and looked painful.

I learned that she was 12 and her brother 9. Even better, I learned they were “best friends” according to him and she nodded in agreement.

I glanced over their shoulders at their mother waiting watchfully in the car and called out: “You must be very proud of these two.”

She smiled so widely it was like she shouted, “Yes, of course I am! Thank you!”

I asked the sister and her tagalong – actually, I suppose it was the other way around in this instance – how much the cookies cost, forgetting from my earlier orders that they are $5 each.

I requested two boxes, but after pulling out a $20 bill thought the better of it and said: “Make it four boxes.”

Simultaneously they nearly sang: “Four boxes, really?”

I wish you could have seen the joy on their shining faces. If you had, you would understand why I had third thoughts and added a fifth box of Shortbread to the previous four Samoas.

The bookend smiles widened until they almost touched.

“You know what?” I said, riding their happiness like a surfer on a perfect wave. “Let’s double my order.”

I don’t remember how long it took to finish those 10 boxes of cookies, but I won’t forget that brother and sister. I sure hope they both come knocking on my door again this Girl Scout Cookie season.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …