Girl Scouts

            by Hannah Johnson

 

When I was in the fourth grade, Julia Greenwood, my best friend since I was a week old, convinced me to join the girl scouts. I was really embarrassed to ask my parents if I could, but she begged and pleaded because she just knew I would have so much fun. It was kind of a tense conversation, but I finally asked them and they said it was okay. When we hit middle school, Julia and I chose to go our separate ways. I'm not sure if I was just not cut out to be a girl scout, or that my local troupe was not up to par with other girl scout troupes—either way, I was a very poor quality girl scout, earning a whopping zero patches of achievement in my two years as a member.

It probably didn't help me that my family was less than supportive of my endeavor, they were skeptical of the idea the moment I brought it up; less skeptical of the troupe itself, more skeptical that I, Hannah Johnson would ever want to be a part of it. I was the next Mia Hamm, a Louisville slugger, and a really fast ice skater all in one—my parents never even thought to sign me up for a dance, let alone a girl scout troupe. I had very spotty attendance.

My allegiance to my troupe was also a little tainted by the fact that I thought girl scouts were, like, really nerdy in the first place, and refused to wear that nerdy poo colored 'Brownie's' vest to the weekly meetings. 'There's no one here to impress,' my troupe leader would tell me. Her name was Sharon. 'Yeah I really couldn't find it though, sorry,' I preferred not to embarrass myself publicly either way, even if all the girls in my troupe were doing it.

Personally, I would never choose to be a girl scout troupe leader. And I especially wouldn't if my name were Sharon and I were a really mean old chain smoker who Patty and Selma on the Simpson's were based on. Although it remains a mystery to me where this woman came from, no one else seemed bothered by the fact that you couldn't breathe inside of her house, and there were cigarette ashes in the hairs of the itchy carpet we had to sit on during meetings. I may have been a little more forgiving if she were somebody's mom or like aunt or something, but she was literally just some chain smoker/cat person who volunteered to babysit a group of 8 year old girls all the time. I always slouched in the back, puffing my cheeks out in attempt to hold my breath, tracing shapes on the carpet while the other girls talked about which Patch Activities they'd done with their moms the previous week. Julia, "Sewed buttons," Kate, "Hiked in Tilden," Kimberly, "Bird watched," Emily, "Gave out soup at the soup kitchen," Hannah, "Pass"--girl scouts was a really positive thing. Unfortunately, I'm not always the most positive person, and maybe didn't max out my positivity potential as a girl scout.

Although most girl scouts certainly do good for our community, let's be real--girl scouts are most famous for the cookies they sell in front of Safeway. I did that once. Precious little girls in pristine uniforms--selling stuff—no surprise there, it's a great sales technique if you'd ask me. What kind of (sub/)conscious pedophile could resist the beckon of a small gathering of nymphets offering up some suga'? Personally, my favorites are the Samoa's (formally known as Carmel Delight's), even though I secretly like Trefoils better. But Trefoils are just plain shortbread, and they're for old people, and I don't know why I like them. So my favorites are the Samoa's, I bet you like Thin Mints best though. For about two or maybe three months every year, girl scouts sell Girl Scout cookies. It's like those magazine subscription things in middle school, the more boxes you sell the cooler prizes you get. Like maybe you sell 30 boxes, then you get a dream catcher--something positive like that. I always thought that asking family friends and neighbors if they wanted to buy cookies from you was really embarrassing though, and pretty awkward, so I never sold any except to my parents, aka myself. Sometime in the last week or actually day before we had to turn in our order forms, my mom would bring it to work, though. That's how I kept my game up.

My mom was always really nice to me about my girl scout phase. Not like Patch Activity nice, but nice from a distance. She packed me grilled cheese sandwiches for meetings and everything, and waited politely in her car for me afterward so she wouldn't have to go into Sharon's house and have second hand smoke and peppy moms or maybe even dads shoved down her throat. Even though it was a little awkward for Julia and the other girls that my mom never came in at the end, I always respected her for it. Sometimes though, my Dad and sister would pick me up on the way home from her soccer practice—that never ended well. And by never ended well I meant they made fun of me and I cried. I guess my dad and my sister thought girl scouts was really nerdy and probably sucked really bad, and even though I thought so too, it was my idea to do it so I had to stand by it. I love being a girl scout, I’d tell them, so fun. And so I kept on doing it. For two whole years.

Although most of the time we all just kind of overlooked the fact that I rarely attended girl scout events outside of those weekly meetings where sometimes Sharon would make us spaghetti out of squash that I wouldn't eat, I was finally singled out and asked to bring hamburger buns to the upcoming 'calling all girl scouts in the greater bay area' camping trip. Hamburger buns; I knew I couldn't cop out of this one.

So we're driving up to the Marin Headlands, playing jello in Sharon's big red truck. Of course Sharon has a big red truck. The road to the Marin Headlands is a long and windy one, excellent terrain for acting like you're a gelatin dessert and flailing around in your friend's laps every chance you get. Unfortunately, as the runt I was forced to sit bitch. Meaning every time we veered a sharp right there was a little more girl on girl action between Sharon and I than I had anticipated upon entering the vehicle.

When we got to the campsite it was raining. And Sharon’s all marching around with her crew cut bellowing out like, 'Okay Groups Ladies, Teams! Group Three.. Buddy System, Groups, Teams! Count Off! One.. Three, Four.. Four?' and so I’m all holding my hamburger buns like, 'Ok dyke-o, do you want these or what?' when she pulls a real fast one on me.

"Now we're going to put our stuff down, head to Ogre Mom's van and grab the tents," Sharon hollered at us. See, her name's not really Ogre Mom or anything but she was Ogre Kate's mom and she was an ogre too, so like of course she had a huge van that people could fit real live tents in. But where I felt Sharon had really pulled the wool over my eyes here was that there weren't really tents in Ogre Mom's large van, she meant we were supposed to set up the tents ourselves. Like, hammer stakes into the ground-style set up, and we were merely runtish eight-year-old girls. Except for Ogre Kate of course.

I knew from years of experience as a younger sibling that if I asked, the answer was no. And I sure as hell wasn't going to risk a nay-say on this one. So we got in our numbered-off, buddy-system group-teams, and I was acting all enthusiastic like maybe I thought fresh mud and manual labor was a fucking sweet combo or something. It worked though, and first thing I did was grab a hammer and a stake and real enthusiastic-like I hammered my thumb right into that stake.

"Ouch," I said, taken aback, it hurt a lot more than I’d planned. No one heard me. "Ouucch...Shhhhhhhaaarrrroooonnnnnnnnn?" and bam, I had her right where I wanted her. Or, I mean I didn't really want her anywhere near me or anything but I needed her to acknowledge the severity of the situation and excuse me from the afternoon's activities accordingly. As soon as I spotted her I instantly lost all confidence in my plan. By the looks of the way this woman was hoofin' it, I wholly expected her to sock me in my tummy and be like, 'Sack up HJ!" Luckily, my instincts were wrong. Even still, I was only able to stop clenching my abs when Sharon handed me the keys to Ogre Mom's large van.

So I spent the duration of the afternoon sitting in Ogre Mom's large van, a little red in the thumb and face from crying, gloating over my absence from the tent production lines. And when Ogre Kate finally quit her peeping tom act I was able to get in some raisin’ the roof to 106 KMEL jamz before Sharon came to get me for dinner.

I was further saddened to learn that regrettably, now was not the time for the aforementioned hamburger buns. Now was the time for all the previously informed girls to pull canned soup out of their duffel bags. And by informed girls I mean the entire ‘greater bay area’ campsite, excluding myself. Out of the myriad of personal-initial clad duffels came a myriad of assorted soups, ranging from runny beef porridge to glutinous clam chowder. “Witch’s brew!” the informed ones chanted in glee. This tradition was very foreign to me. And I was pretty skeptical to become acquainted, to say the least. I mean, call me a picky eater if you will, but give me some good ole mac n cheese, some mashed potatoes—heck I’d even take some of Sharon’s spaghetti/squash before I’d eat that recipe for the runs. Regardless, I joined my troupe at the kitchen line and allowed one of the cheery blonde mothers from another troupe to serve me the Brew. So naturally, I ate my troupe-mate’s bread crusts for dinner. For whatever reason, young people these days seem to fancy crust-less bread, and I used that fact to my absolute advantage that night. I looked around me, observing all the jovial preteens slurping up real, live throw-up when I had my epiphany—this would be the termination of my life as a girl scout.

Luckily, the evening’s activities were relatively painless for most of us—there was some holding hands in circles, a few rounds of trust, things of that nature. Well actually the activities weren’t painless for all of us, when it was Ogre Kate’s turn to close her eyes and trust that her partner would catch her, she fell. She fell right on her ogre ass. But that was a very minor setback for the rest of us. Little did I know, the real trauma was yet to come.

So it was bedtime and we all brushed our teeth at the water fountain except I forgot my toothbrush which sucked kind of. Obviously I used my finger but we all know that hardly does the job. So we’re all getting in our tents and since I was in Ogre Mom’s van at the time we picked groups, I was stuck with these creepy Jewish girls I didn’t know, and this girl Kimberly who went to my school. Kimberly still dressed like a toddler and sometimes wet herself like one too. Plus, she still brought her Polly Pocket to school even though we all threw ours away when we were like, seven.

In the Girl Scout’s program, girls learn the importance of personal responsibility, the value of goal-setting, the spirit of teamwork, and the thrill of accomplishment.