December 2013 (and spring 2014—a little bit)

Come Over To The Dark Side. We Have Cookies.

"Mommy…pweeeeeease?"

When I was Lexi's age, we had a cat named Lazarus. He started out as Meatloaf (don't ask), but Ray renamed him after he got hit by a car and—thanks to a very good vet—survived. He had pins in one back leg; if his food bowl was empty, the leg would slide out to the side and he'd give you his 'pity me, I'm a crippled orphan waif' look. The gimpy leg never got in the way when chasing the neighbor's German Shepard (yes, that's the right order), but if he wanted sympathy or service—well, you could almost picture the crutch cobbled from a tree limb and the tin cup in his paw.

I wouldn't be so suspicious as to say Lexi was doing it on purpose (I know Lazarus was), but her "L" lisp was starting to disappear… except for when she was appealing to my better nature. (That sounds so much nicer than 'when she was trying to pull a con job.') It had to be accidental. It better be accidental.

"Honey, we just cleared the living room of all those—all those boxes of books for the school carnival." I bit back the cuss words I really wanted to use. I am going to put Wanda Packer's number on call block from here on out. "The cr—stuff for the wrapping paper sale arrived this morning and is now stacked in the living room. And you want me to be cookie chairman for the Girl Scouts? Honey—you're a newbie, you're a Daisy. Shouldn't the mother of one of the older girls be chairman?" I asked with a desperate, hopeful, marginally maniacal grin on my face. "You know—someone who's been around a while, knows the system?"

"Nana says she was cookie chairman every year and you know egg-zactly what to do."

Nana is my mother. I'm putting her on call block, too.

"Mr. Sherman got transferred to Idunno—"

"Idaho."

"And Mrs. Sherman had to go with him and she was cookie chairman—pweeeeeeease?"

I sighed in defeat. "I guess so."

She whooped in delight and ran to the wall. "Mrs. Eloy, Mrs. Eloy, Mom says yes, she'd love to!" she shouted into the phone. She held out the receiver. "She wants to talk to you. I'll hang up the stension."

"Extension," I said automatically. "Hi, Carole."

There was a laugh as the other receiver clattered into place. "Something tells me you didn't exactly say, 'I'd love to.' How did she do it? When Lexi volunteered you, I figured, 'no way.'"

I sighed again. "Sometimes I just can't say no."

"And you only have one kid? Amazing."

"Carole, you have a filthy mind. I admire that. Give me the details…"

Ducky and I had a long discussion about how to deal with the cookie orders. Back when I was a Girl Scout, we tromped around the block with our order sheet, selling them at fifty cents a box. I can remember the price going up to seventy-five; the math-challenged in the troop made a cheat sheet of seventy-five-cent increments—now they have it on the form. And it's a lot more than seventy-five cents. But it's not considered safe to go around the neighborhood. As a matter of fact, the girls aren't allowed to do it unless accompanied by an adult, and they still discourage it. No, for pre-orders it's preferred to take the form to work… where the parents do the selling.

We compromised. Lexi schlepped around the neighborhood for about a ten-block radius. Ducky took her one day, I took her another, until we'd reached our limit. (Our limit. Not hers.) She went with Mother and Suzy during afternoon walks during the week and cleaned up for the really local area. One, she's the only kidin the area who's in Scouts (she's almost the only kid, period). Two, everybody has known Mother and Ducky for some 25 years and gladly placed orders. (Even Mr. Eller, the birdwatcher across the street (the one Mother thinks is a spy) ordered a dozen boxes. At four bucks a pop, no less.) I never mentioned the cookie form to any customers, just let it sit by the register. I still managed a respectable number of sales.

And Ducky got permission for Lexi to come to work and go around the building. I figured between Gibbs and the team and a few others, she'd probably do another 40-50 boxes.

It is to laugh.

Order sheets arrived in time for the start of winter vacation; booth sales would be later in the spring. For the whole week-long vacation, Lexi drove in with Ducky, did her sales spiel, joined me at the store around lunch, then went home to Reston in the afternoon. I had provided Ducky with two order brochures, figuring there would be plenty 'sure, I'll order a box' orders from people who had already ordered ten from their own kid, two from a neighbor's, three more at church and so on. I figured her extended family would be the big sales.

As I looked over the order sheets—Ducky had photocopied the blank and came home with, dear god, twelve order sheets—my jaw dropped.

I walked back to the living room in a state of shock. No; horror. "Is this for real?"

He looked up from where he and Lexi were playing Citadel on the coffee table. "Yes," he said cautiously. "Why do you question it?"

"Well, one, there are names I've never even heard of—despite five years of Christmas parties, family picnics and whatnot. Two—" I looked at my final tally sheet. "I come up with—and I just triple-checked my addition—four thousand, seven hundred and two boxes!" My voice hit about F above high C on the last word.

Ducky looked at Lexi. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." He looked back up at me and I could see the laugh in his eyes. "She was hoping to break five thousand."

"Well, if you add in the sheets from the store and the eight zillion from around the block—"

He wagged a finger. "Don't exaggerate."

"Ducky—if every girl in the troop sells this many—" I censored myself. "—freeping cookies—" I waved my arm. "Where do you propose to put them? Remember, the cookie chairman takes delivery of ALL the cookies—for each and every girl and for each and every cookie booth," I said with an ominous look.

"We'll find a place," he said cheerfully.

I planted my hands on my hips. "And how the—heck—did you guys sell—" I checked the sheet again. "Four thousand, seven hundred and two boxes of cookies?"

Ducky looked guilty. Just a little bit. "Aunt Abby and Aunt Ziva took me around the first two days," Lexi chirped.

I plopped onto the couch. "Oh, god," I groaned. "I'll be up on charges of cookie sales by coercion and intimidation."

"Uncle Timmy took me another day. He said computer geeks eat lots of junk food. Boy, did they order a bunch!"

"I can imagine," I said weakly.

"Uncle Tony got all the ladies to buy lots and lots of cookies—"

"I'll bet he did."

"And Uncle Jethro took me on Friday." Lexi bounced up and down on the couch next to me. "Daddy had to print five more pages that day!"

I shook my head and couldn't help but laugh. "I'll bet he did."

"Next year, I wanna sell ten thousand!"

Ducky looked innocently toward the ceiling. "Next year," I said super-sweetly, "Daddy gets to be cookie chairman."

Once upon a time in Virginia, there was a little girl who sold one hell of a lot of Girl Scout cookies.

Elizabeth Brinton, formerly of Fairfax, Virginia, still holds the record: 18,000 boxes in one cookie season.

And, personally, after stacking crates of cookies in every room but the bathrooms, it's a record I hope we never break… but I'm not placing any bets.