i remember in grade school seeing other little girls lining up in the hall after school, talking about "brownies" and being in cute little brown outfits with sashes to boot...i thought it was the coolest thing next to being a cheerleader, an honor - standing out from the rest of society in a little uniform, and to my naieve mind, baking and eating brownies once a week after school - it was like a dream come true for a sugar loving princess like myself!   i went right home and told my mommy i had to be in this group, no questions asked, i wanted to make and eat brownies!!!!   she smiled, giggled and told me thats not what they did, i was sure she was very confused, she let me join.  i soon found out i was very confused (who knew!).  i liked it still - all my friends were in it now, our 'club' was all in brownies, we didnt necessarily bake brownies to the best of my memory, but we sewed 'things', had hawaiian hula shows for our moms and dads, got to earn patches for doing random acts of kindness, learning your alphabet, and/or learning the girl scout honor saying, go skiing and having a cabin full of giggly girls doing hair and make up - being a big girl and being in an organized 'club' with my club, was just about the raddest. thing. ever.  i remember selling girl scout cookies too and knew we would get prizes up the wah-zoo and patches to cover our sash if we outsold the likes of girls like Veruca Salt - i had high hopes, i was sure i'd win...much to my dismay, dear sweet veruca won, again.  i had a great time anyway, not to mention eating my cookies!!!  me and mom would sit together at the table, or eating in our orange shag carpeted basement watching alfred hitchcock, scared half to death while daddy worked, eating samoa after sweet samoa, in no time flat, it was time for us to open yet another delicious box of sugary-coconut treats!  we would pass out, the two of us, on the couch, post-sugar crash....  every year since my first taste of that concoction, like clock-work, i knew when it was going to be time, an alarm would go off in my head, i had to find girl scout cookies, and nothing or no one would or could ever stop me.....

some years past my girl scout cookie days, the alarm still went off, but now was in southern california....i didnt have any friends with younger siblings, children going door to door on hollywoods famed boulevard or teacher friends to get them from and/or for me for that matter....desperate times call for desperate measures and not even a new town would keep me from my favorite treat.... i went to the website to the girl scouts of america seeking a pathetic troup in santa monica, i had dreams about the cookies, i re-entered my email weeks later when convinced i had missed it, and last but not least, i posted a craigslist ad:  desperately seeking the saddest girl scout (always for the underdog) with least amount of cookie sales ever, after, of course, a stress quenched glass of wine....the next morning, i almost felt like it was christmas, i got a response!  i excitedly wrote back, over some more correspondance, she was thanking ME!  are you kidding!?  she was even dropping them at my house from south bay and charging the normal $4 a box (which had gone up at least 100% from my girl scouting days! hey!  i'm not complaining, but simply pointing out inflation,  aside from obvious things like gas and milk, the rise of cost on all things necessary in life!)  AND they were coming in one day early!!! - i was super-duper pysched!!!  

i met the woman at the front of my building after a call from her saying she was a mere 4 blocks from my home!  i quick brushed my teeth, getting rid of any taste of anything else that had been in my mouth prior (food people, food.  get your minds out of the gutter, this is a sweet story of fond, loving memories of cookie eating, sheesh!), got off the phone with my cousin who was in town visiting, ran out the door to greet my...older girl scout?  aw, i was hoping for a little christina with pig tails...(cut sad music) smile, give $40 (yeah, so?!), take cookies and run into the house....before i even got in the door, i had stuffed two of my mouth watering samoas in my mouth, giddy with joy, i separated boxes to give and boxes to keep - the ratio was unparallel.  i put thin mints appropriately in my freezer while watching my non-offspring dog sniff what she will never know as the greatest tasting treat to it her palate...poor thing, i wouldve shared, b-b-b-but it'd kill her...but what a way to die!  give me cookies, or give me death!  

speaking of death, did i mention i have a terrible allergy to gluten and dairy...so aside from the near toxic levels of sugar in these dulce-delish's - there is plenty of dairy and wheat to fill my tummy with toxic levels....(think, think, think....fuck it - i'm eating them, then back to regular non-toxic diet)  

stay tuned for part two....