My mother wasn’t much of a joiner. Not like Bill’s mom, who was a member of her garden club and her church bell choir and a book club and PEO. Mom worked and cooked and watched football and went to church and spent time with her family.
Because Bill’s mom enjoyed participating in community groups and clubs, she had her kids active as well. As a child, Bill took acting lessons and singing lessons and tennis lessons. He sang in his church’s children’s choir. If there was a way she could get Bill out of the house and thereby not torturing his sister, she found it.
I belonged to exactly zero clubs as a kid. It wasn’t until junior high when I was able to join CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) because if she didn’t let me, the nuns would have hunted her down. Mostly it was okay, because I, like my mother, am not much of a joiner. But man-oh-man, would I have liked being a Girl Scout.
Let me rephrase that. I would have liked JOINING the Girl Scouts. For about two meetings. Because for me, it was mostly about getting to wear the Brownie and Girl Scout uniform.
Court was a Cub Scout for a brief period of time. It didn’t really stick. After all, this is the child who told me he didn’t want to go on a hike because “I hate nature.” But he stuck it out long enough to get his Webelo badge and then happily tossed aside his blue uniform and pretty much has stuck to his dislike of nature ever since.
I am reminded about this hole in my life about this time every year, when my grandchildren who ARE Girl Scouts are selling cookies. For a time, I had three Brownies, resulting in the purchase of a hell of a lot of cookies, resulting in situations like this….
Since Maggie Faith tossed aside her brown vest, I’m now down to only two….
Kaiya and Mylee are ready to begin their 2019 course in consumerism. They start with their grandparents.
I don’t know the level of the rest of the grandparents’ commitments, but this nana is determined to order four boxes of cookies from each cookie entrepreneur. I will give Bill his choice of four, and I will choose four as well. Bill will select any cookies involving chocolate. As for me, I am all about the Savannah Smiles and the Tagalongs. I used to be a Samoa girl, but now it’s all about the peanut butter.
Girls Scouts of America now allows grandparents (and others) who live far, far away from their grandkids to place an order and have them delivered right to their door step. Sales can be completed entirely without talking to a single Girl Scout. Except I will talk to mine.
I will place my order which will allow me to confidently refuse the scads of little girls selling cookies in front of every single grocery store in the city.
“Sorry,” I sing to them. “I’ve already given my order to my two favorite Girl Scouts.”
By the way, if you’re in the cookie market, give me a buzz. I can hook you up.
Friday afternoon I got a text message from my 10-year-old granddaughter Kaiya: Nana. (Kaiya always starts her text messages to me with an emphatic Nana and a period. She just wants to make sure I’m paying attention.) Incredible 2 is on Netflix.
Nana's Whimsies 