My Annual Torment

Why, oh why, do the Girls Scouts time their cookie season to match Lent?

Every year I look longingly at boxes of Samoas and ponder the question of whether this is a cruel joke or a complete coincidence. I currently have two girl scouts who badger me to order cookies in January, when it seems like a really good idea. However, when the order arrives during Lent I wonder what I was thinking. For weeks these boxes sit on the pantry shelves while I shoot loving glances their way, counting the days until they can be mine.

Today, as an added bonus, I got to spend three hours with Julia outside of Lowes staffing her troop's cookie booth. We sold dozens of boxes to happy people while I imagined them, somewhat resentfully, ripping the boxes open the minute they got back to their cars (which is exactly what I would do if I were them, no doubt!). Julia, like me, gave up cookies for Lent, so she abstained along with me while the other girls of her troop liberally sampled their products. I was proud of her, especially her cheerful disposition about the whole thing.

It helps that we always exclude Sundays from our Lenten promises. They are, after all, feast days in and of themselves, so we treat them as such. We were both imagining tomorrow when we would be consuming the box of Samoas we tucked away for the occasion.

It also helps that Easter is late this year so we had a little time to enjoy a few cookies before Ash Wednesday happened upon us.

Still I want to know. Why cookies at this time of the year? There are 11 other months that would work just fine. I'm just saying.