Mark My Words: Scouting for Girls

Look, I know I am not a Girl Scout, although I do think the outfits are cute. I am not four foot seven—I am six feet tall, and I don’t think, “Boys are gross,” though, having been there, I can tell you we are kind of gross.

This is precisely why I would never sell Girl Scout cookies myself. After all, it’s a girl’s job to support Girl Scouts. Eating them—now that’s a man’s job.

But because I would never do it, I had to do it anyway. A girl lent me her old vest, and I began to sell cookies on the streets.

It sounds like the description of a police blotter, but there I was: a white, 16-year-old bearded male with a Girl Scout vest. Maybe I was a kidnapper, or maybe I was making a statement about gender ambiguity. But either way, I still wanted to support the Girl Scout cookie cause. I knew my chances were slim.

But it has recently come to my attention that I’m not cute anymore. With the immensely increased “sex-factor” that came with my puberty, my “cute-factor” has been severely diminished. This has side effects: Teenage women tend to want to spend more time with me, while middle-aged women no longer want to wipe my tush. And so, my cuteness not what it once was, I knocked on the first door.

I stood there—my tight vest pushing my pectorals together so that I would have somewhat feminine features. A woman wearing a sundress and holding a mixed drink in her hand answered the door, told me she was the cleaning lady and that, frankly, she was not “hungry for cookies.” There were two possibilities—either my outfit made her lie, or she was the worst cleaning lady ever.

When the owner of the next house asked, “Who’s there?” I decided not to mess around. I told her I was selling Girl Scout cookies in a baritone voice. The door stayed shut. At the next house, I decided to reply in a shrill falsetto, “I’m a wittle girl.” This was also unsuccessful.

And so, as my journey into Girl Scout-dom came to an end, I had learned two things: Cleaning ladies come in all shapes and sizes, and deep voices don’t open doors. But most importantly, I learned the lesson of hypocrisy.

People say they buy cookies to help girls do great things, but perhaps some of it has to do with the fact that, if her Mommy does it right, an eight-year-old girl can have pretty cute hair. And even though the Girl Scout vest makes my body look great, it’s not enough to sell cookies.

The problem is that, image overrides content. A girl in a swimsuit can sell magazines, and a girl in a vest can sell cookies.

For that afternoon, I was just trying to do something for society. And in a perfect world, people would have the decency to look past my height and hair and just see that I’m a boy dressed as a Girl Scout, trying to help the girls. There’s nothing creepy about that.

I think.