Girl Scout Cookies

It’s that time of year again, when we all get a taste of what addiction would be like when those “cookies”—do-gooder, legal crack—are delivered.

Remember when you got the call from your niece, or saw that shiny form with pictures of this year’s cookie choices and all the tiny lines to fill in your order in the lunch room at work? And you thought, Well, I shouldn’t… but I want to support my niece/daughter/the Girl Scouts. Or maybe you’re at peace with your annual soiree to the dark side, comfortable enough to say YES! I love Girl Scout cookies; I love this time of year! Either way, your diet is headed for disaster. Not diet in the traditional—I’m depriving myself of food or otherwise manipulating what I want to put in my mouth in order to lose weight—sense, but diet as in food intake period. Because whether or not you are controlling your food intake, it most likely cannot afford the extra calories and fat that a sleeve, perhaps a whole box, of cookies introduces to the metabolic machine--efficient or not--that is your body. If you are a person who made a New Year's resolution? Well, bu-bye. There it goes--down the tube. It'll take till summer to repair the damage.

I laugh when I look at the portion size. 2 Tagalongs? Seriously? My 9 year old niece can scarf twice that in five minutes. 4 thin mints? Then why do they come in a sleeve of 20? Which happens to go perfectly with a 12 ounce glass of milk?

I suppose some of us probably try to stick to a portion or two. We put them back in the cupboard where they taunt us. Like a half empty bottle of tequila in the cupboard on Cinco de Mayo. And the next thing we know we feel sick. We swear them off, never again. Which is why the lemon ones are often still in the cupboard until April. But, indeed, like an alcoholic and his or her bottle, we go back to it. Finally, all temptation is removed, and the whole experience a distant memory the next time the call comes, next January.

Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?