Operation Cookie Drop

It's that time of year again. Just when the slow winter depression starts to set in and the realization that the best of the holidays are over and the cold weather has just begun, a cheery girl in a green vest comes knocking on your door with the promise of hope.

A girl scout and her girl scout cookies.

The Girl Scouts have come up with an ingenious plan. For a mere $3.50 a box (when I was a girl scout, I believe they retailed for $1.75 a box), you get the joy of a limited edition cookie. Now's the time to stock your freezer with boxes of Thin Mints and Samoas (at least, that's what they were called when I was a girl scout), to be later enjoyed the other 11 months of the year.

This year, a little girl scout came knocking on my door, and I bought two boxes of Thin Mints, a box of Samoas and a box of Peanut Butter something-or-others. And one box for the troops.

Operation Cookie Drop is apparently the girl scout's way of spreading cheer and good will to our soliders overseas. Each person can buy a box of cookies for the troops. So I put myself down for a box - I figure it's the least I can do. I'm sure they would appreciate a box of girl scout cookies. I didn't get to specify a particular cookie, though, and I just hope that the troops don't find themselves with 10,000 boxes of Shortbread Cookies. Because, let's be honest, not all girl scout cookies are quite as wonderfully delicious as others.

I imagine boxes of Thin Mints being dropped from airplanes like manna from heaven, each with it's own tiny parachute to bring it safely and gently down upon Iraq and Afghanistan. Troops looking up to the skies cheering and dancing around as the minty goodness rains around them. Newspaper headings proclaiming "Girl Scouts boost Troops' Morale!" and "Osama gets a beating thanks to the Girl Scouts!"

I wonder if the troops, like me, are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the middle of February, when my four boxes of cookies will be delivered to my door, in exchange for $17.50. I wonder if brave girl scouts and their leaders will be traveling to the Middle East to set up cookie tables, selling the extra boxes of cookies to the troops who were not as fortunate to grab a parachuting box of Thin Mints. I wonder if they, like me, are debating if they should have ordered that extra box of Thin Mints and Samoas, just to fortify them through the dreary winter months.

After all, it's not every day that you can enoy a Girl Scout cookie.