Jon Carroll wrote a really nice column a few days ago about mothers who came to his door selling Girl Scout Cookies on behalf of their children. As I said, it was really nice. Mr. Carroll's work is always great. However, since he has worked from home for some time there is an aspect of the Girl Scout Cookie pusher that he may be unaware of. Uh huh. Some of you are nodding. I speak of The Stalker of The Cubicle Farm. (Cue theremin music.) For nine years I worked in a call center for a major telecom company. Every Spring the Girl Scout mothers would start wheeling in luggage carriers stacked high with weapons-grade high fructose corn syrup delivery systems. There were three hundred people in my building and two thirds of them were women. At least half of them had children of the scouting age. Do the math. One hundred cookie monsters fighting turf wars and my little work station smack in the middle of no man's land.
A lot of people take their vacations at the start of Spring. I think I know why now and it has nothing to do with Mardi Gras.
Unwritten rules of combat are made and broken each year. No selling outside your own team. (That one lasts about a week.) No flyers on windshields...It happened one year. I plead a lethal nut allergy and get away with a couple of boxes of thin mints which I do not take home but rather display on my desk as a talisman to ward against further forays by the smores brigade. By the use of that ruse I escape with only ten or twenty dollars in damage. I breathe a sigh and relax.
Until I hear the dread words, "Band Candy?"
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