The next morning I arrived comfortably early and beheld an awesome sight: a tiny Girl Scout in her proud blue slash, standing before a glorious rainbow wall of cookies.
She wore glasses and lopsided blond pigtails. It was all too perfect. I couldn’t believe she was real.
I whipped out some cash. The drumbeat was loud.
“Hi! Can I get one box of Samoas?” I asked, taking care to use a normal, human voice.
She nodded. “That’ll be four dollars.”
I kept my hand steady as I extended my five-dollar bill. She took it, then cocked her head, as if the darndest thing had just occurred to her.
“Would you like to make a donation for a dollar?”
“Sure,” I said, almost cutting her off. What did I care if the little twerp squeezed another buck out of me? The beautiful treasures were literally feet away from my mouth. She smiled and chirped, “Thank you!”
At this point, I almost broke into song. It was so easy. So incredibly pleasant! This adorable Girl Scout gets to feel like she’s learning business skills or something, I get the cookies that I need to survive—what’s not to love? I was having such a ball, I felt like prolonging the moment. I cast around for something to say.
“So. What’s your favorite cookie?”
She didn’t seem too excited by the question. In fact, I thought I saw a shiver of weariness flutter through her. It reminded me of this one time in high school when I went up to the keyboardist at a Tommy Bahama restaurant and asked him to play the piña colada song.
She recovered quickly, though. “It’s S’mores,” she said. I think she sensed another sale, because she added, “If you put them in the mic for just two seconds, they’re sooo good!”
“Wow, sounds great!” I said, wrapping up our happy little exchange. “I’ll have to try those sometime!”
She giggled and handed me the box of Samoas. And then, as I took them, she looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
“You’re really excited about the cookies,” she said.
Did I detect...a smirk? What the hell? I was just politely mirroring her enthusiasm. Something was off. It was time to get out of there. I turned and started away.
“Wait,” she called out. She ran out from behind her table and extended her little hand toward me. “This is my Cookie Card. You can order cookies from my website.” Then she uttered the phrase that sliced straight to the bone:
“You look like a person who would want more.”
A middle-aged woman let out a guffaw behind me as the Girl Scout skipped back to her table, no doubt energized by the years of my life force she had just sucked straight into her black heart. With that simple sentence, she had unmasked me for all the world to see. I wasn’t a respectable, human woman; I was a screaming void of cookie need.
I turned and walked back to my wretched cookie lair, the hag’s laughter ringing in my ears.
The Samoas were a little bit stale, as they always are. But as I slid them out of their plastic tray and sent them home, I had no regrets. So what if I was clearly “a person who would want more”? I do want more. I demand more. And after all, isn’t “Demand More” the motto of the Girl Scouts?
Wait, I just looked it up—it’s actually “Be Prepared.” Ah, whatever. I just really like Samoas.
Jen Spyra is a former staff writer for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Big Time is her first book, available now.
The Link LonkApril 07, 2021 at 07:00PM
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