Rite of Passage

Well, friends.

I am now an adult.

Not because I have passed both my 18th and 21st birthdays, respectively.

Not because I have graduated from college and have a real job.

Not even because I don't live with my parents anymore.

But because I bought Girl Scout cookies. From an actual Girl Scout.

There's nothing more grown-up than that.

How I accomplished this feat is a tale worth telling.

First, know that I had no interest in buying Girl Scout cookies.

Yes, yes, I know. Girl Scout cookies are the best. I have a high interest in the cookies themselves, but not in the purchasing of them.

Why's that? Well, consider the cookies. There are trefoils, which is the word Girl Scouts like to use instead of the equally confusing but actual name of shortbread. Though trefoils are very delicious, I can buy better shortbread cookies elsewhere.

There are samoas, which are concoctions made of shortbread, chocolate, caramel and coconut that unless I am very much mistaken have nothing to do with a lovely Pacific Island nation that is split between the United States and itself. E. L. Fudge makes a darned good samoa, so why should I buy them from the Girl Scouts?

Then there are thin mints. Which, surprisingly, are exactly what they sound like.

As a child, I loved thin mints. Now, however, I strongly dislike them. Thin mints just pale in comparison to all other mint cookies. Like mint Oreos, which are the food of the gods. And these other cookies I found that have a thin layer of mint cream on top of a chocolate wafer and then the whole thing is coated in chocolate. It's all the deliciousness of a Junior Mint but in a cookie. This is what, in a perfect world, a thin mint would be. Thin mints wish they were the cookie version of Junior Mints, while in reality they are the cookie version of Junior Mints' stingy grandfather.

So, obviously I had no need of any Girl Scout cookies whatsoever. When a lady at my workplace said, "Here's the order form of a Girl Scout I know and here are some samples," my response was akin to the "begone, foul Dwimmerlaik" speech Eowyn gives before she kills the Nazgul. Except it was about having no need of purchasing Girl Scout cookies, which I suppose ties in but distantly.

Even though I had no intention of buying Girl Scout cookies, I decided to sample one of the chocolate-covered peanut butter cookies because curiosity tells me to do things and then I do them.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Wow, these are good.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Like, really good.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I'll have another.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: And another.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Maybe two more.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Fine. I'll just buy a flippin' box.

I went to the order form and ordered a box of what are apparently called tagalongs (which is exactly the word that comes to mind when I think of chocolate-covered peanut butter cookies). Of course, I then had to order a box of trefoils and a box of samoas as well. Ordering one box of fundraiser cookies looks cheap. Ordering two boxes makes it look like you're trying not to look cheap. So three it was.

It was with much anticipation that I awaited the delivery of the Girl Scout cookies so that I might receive my portion of adulthood and peanut butter.

After a few weeks and some delays (one of the only snowstorms all winter happened the day that my cookies were going to be delivered), I exchanged twelve dollars for a bag of three boxes of cookies.

Very excited, I untied the plastic bag to find one box of trefoils, one box of samoas, and one box of disappointment.

Excuse me. I meant disappointmint.

Disappoint thin mint. S.

I could go on, but by the time I finished, the Girl Scout that mistakenly gave me these disappointworst cookies ever except for oatmeal raisin would be graduated from college.