Filed Under: brownies

Not without my badges!

March 4, 2009 at 7:44 am

It is a sad time to be a Girl Scout. First cookie sales are down due to the recession, and now they’re taking away the badges!

The biggest change is last year’s debut of Journeys, a pilot curriculum that will mostly replace the system of earning badges on specific topics. Girls still will be able to earn badges if they want, but Journeys rarely mentions them, focusing instead on broader themes, including teamwork and healthy living.

What kind of farce is this? Healthy living lectures from the demon distributors of Samoas and Thin Mints and Tagalongs? Ha! They can talk as much as they want about teamwork, but I remember what Girl Scouts was really about – tacky glue, fights over who lit the match to start the campfire, and BADGES. Lots and lots of badges. So many badges that yo’ mamma better learn to sew.

A Brownie you can't eat

Here I am in 2nd grade in my Brownie Girl Scout jumper, with matching shoes, socks and striped shirt. I was the kind of Brownie you can’t eat. (If you’re not a cannibal.) As you can see, I was only beginning to earn my badges, but as a member of Central Maryland Troop 410, I was already plowing through my workbook, earning as many triangle shaped badges as I could. You had to complete activities to earn badges in different categories. The goal was to get three badges in the same color, like owning all the same color real estate in monopoly. There was nothing more awful and incomplete than having a row of only 1 or 2 triangle badges, your sash desperately yearning for completion of the color palette.

What? It still fits! I swear!

I have purged many items from my apartment in the past few years, but I would never throw out my Brownie sash. And it totally still fits (over my head).

Badges! Worth more than the dollar they paid for them.

See all my beautiful badges! They have puppets and Jazzercisers and Erlenmeyer flasks embroidered on them. They are so fancy and worth far more than the fraction of a dollar they cost on bulk order.

There are the special badges on the back which I got for going to Girl Scout camp and for sleeping over at the Harford Mall and for…riding a brontosaurus? I don’t know what I earned that dinosaur patch at the top for. However, I will never forget all my cookie patches.

Cookies! I sold 200 boxes (which I didn't eat myself, promise)

Yes, that 200+ means I sold 200 boxes of cookies, not that I ate 200 boxes of cookies. Though I would have been happy to oblige them on both counts if my wallet and ass were both fat enough. ~~My mom~~ I sold lots of boxes of cookies to the fraternity boys in town ~~by hiding under the table as my mom did the sales pitch~~ with my expert salesmanship!

I do not know what the Girl Scouts are thinking, de-emphasizing the badges. Without them, all you’ve got left is the tacky glue and the fights over who lights the matches. I cherish my badges and I would give up a dozen boxes of Samoas for the sweet feeling of completing a row of colors.

Bluebell and the Bicycling Brownie Bandit

September 18, 2008 at 6:35 am

I bought a bike. I probably paid fifty dollars more for it than if I had shopped around. They charged me extra for the kickstand and the water bottle holder too. But I decided I needed to buy a bike already or I would never do it. So I bought a bike – a beautiful, blue bike. I’ve named her Bluebell.

Beautiful blue bike

She has flowers and bubbles imprinted on her handles and seat.

Patterned handle bars

And stylish decals painted on her frame.

Decals on the frame

Basically, this bike is targeted at young women who aren’t as concerned about performance as they are about riding a pretty bike, a demographic I fall squarely in. If you fall in that demographic too and want to buy your own, she’s a Trek 7100 WSD.

I rode Bluebell to Butler University to buy Avenue Q tickets, saving money on gas and obscene TicketMaster “convenience” fees which I have never found to be convenient. However, I’d forgotten I was getting my hair cut on the same day. So I went to the stylist and told her I was going out that night instead of telling her I was about to bike 10 miles in a helmet because I knew the truth would break her heart. My hair looked cute, but it wasn’t cute enough to die for. Safety first, cuteness second.

Canal tow path

I rode the Canal Tow path to the box office, which at first runs adjacent to a moderately busy street full of noise and exhaust, but after a mile it swerves into the trees and looks more like this.

Very scenic

It made me want to sing “Tra-la-la” as I pedaled, so I did. Of course, it also adds increased fear that I will hit a large twig the wrong way and go ass over end into the murky waters of the canal. I try to steer carefully. I biked through some swarms of geese, which thankfully did not chase me down and peck my eyes out in protest. God only knows what they did to the owner of this hat.

The culprits lurking in the background?

I should have consulted Google maps before leaving, because I wasn’t quite sure what the shortest route to the box office was. I heard cheering and bullhorns in the distance and figured a game was going on at the stadium, so I followed the noise. This was a bad idea because the noise was at the top of a BFH – a big fucking hill.

I pedaled Bluebell as hard as I could and barely made it to the top of the parking lot, where I found myself in the middle of a tailgating event. I figured this out when I saw lawn chairs and fans and rode past the long table of chips, cookies, and a gooey plate of chocolate iced brownies. I started to calculate how many calories were in the brownies and how many calories I would burn on my bike ride, and the only thing that stopped me from grabbing one was the social outrage it would have caused. I would have been the Bicycling Brownie Bandit! And there was no way I could have outrun a hoard of angry tailgaters who wanted their brownies back after I’d pedaled up the BFH.

After I got my tickets, I had to bike home, which is one of the good things about exercising outside because if I had been at the gym I would have gotten off the bike at that point. But I kept going and made it back to the my apartment. But not after I rode past The Flying Cupcake, our local cupcakery, and again started to do calorie calculations in my head.

I kept on pedaling.