Girls Gone Wild With Price Gouging

By Jacob Bennett

Today I'm going Girl Scout cooking.
I just ate my first batch of Girl Scout cookies, fresh from the oven. Or at least fresh from the sprawling Girl Scout Headquarters compound, where one of my co-workers arranged a deal to hook me up with the good stuff.
That's $9 for three boxes of peanut buttery chocolate goodness (same price as last year), all she could afford to loan me until I could hit the ATM.
Ready to dig in once the hand-off was complete, I came to a startling realization: There weren't as many cookies in there as the last time I bought some.
I didn't get that memo. Did you get that memo?
Did they think I wouldn't notice that there were only two rows of Tagalongs? By the way, here in Evansville, they don't even call them Tagalongs. They call them "Peanut Butter Patties," and I had to clarify when placing my order.
"I didn't know the Ohio River separated Kentucky from Russia," I grumbled.
I wondered why I'd had such a hard time finding sellers this year, considering the little tykes can usually be found camped outside the busiest stores in town. Now I know the reason why they're keeping a low profile: They're ashamed of their lies.
Representatives for the Girl Scouts couldn't be reached for comment unless I picked up and dialed a phone.
So I shot off an e-mail to my co-worker, who sits two desks away, asking her why I got gypped.
"At least your money will be going to a good cause," she wrote back.
Ouch. I hadn't thought about it like that. The Girl Scouts are a great organization. I've had relatives in the group, and one of my all-time favorite co-workers is a troop leader who would give me cookies and Willie Nelson CDs for no compensation.
They turn goofy young females into Woman Scouts. They grow up to be better workers, better mothers, better public servants.
But by the same token, I can't think of a single Girl Scout who grew up to date me.
And I submit that there's a seedy underbelly to the organization (is there any other kind of underbelly, by the way?), one which charges you the same money for less goodness without telling you, even though you would have been perfectly happy to pay more money for the same goodness.
I realize I've now angered this underbelly, and I'll probably vanish, never to be heard from again (which many of you will say is the Girl Scouts' greatest public service).
It's worth it, so you can have more cookies next year.
I propose a Girl Scout ban. Don't buy any more of their cookies this year. Not their tasty Thin Mints, not their deliciousness-heavy Samoas, not even their good-value promoting All Abouts. Buy Boy Scout cookies, if you have to. Just whatever you do, don't buy from the Girl Scouts.
I'm starting my ban as soon as I finish a couple more boxes.
Columnist Jacob Bennett saw girls, girls, at the Doll House in Fort Lauderdale, girls, girls, girls, rocking in Atlanta at Tattletails, girls, girls, girls at jacobmbennett@hotmail.com.