House of Eratosthenes

Me, I’m pretty cold and heartless about it. It’s not a matter of iron will power — that much you can tell by my physique, or lack thereof. But I live in a surburbia, and statistics & sensibilities would confirm it to be one of the more affluent ones. Just barely rustic enough for openness; it is fairly overrun with, well, panhandlers. That’s what they are, isn’t it? Please sign this petition, help this cause, that cause, take this pamphlet. Either they don’t ask the store manager’s permission, or there’s something in the air that keeps the store managers from telling them “no.”

Cookie Girl So I tell the girls I don’t have any cash for their cookies, whether that’s true or not. I don’t need ’em anyway. But then again, they don’t look like the graphic to the right.

It’s not the same way with Gerard.

I’ve tried to escape their clutches, but it’s no good. Today, desperate to kick after discovering last night that I could hear a box of Thin Mints calling to me through a closed door, I even invented a granddaughter.

The MILF saw my glance at their cookie table and smiled. I said, having bought no less than three boxes of their krispy krack over the last week, “I’m sorry, but my granddaughter has made me swear to buy cookies only from her troop.” (I have no granddaughter, but I was in despair.)

One of her henchgirls shrugged and did a cartwheel while the other two looked disappointed in that trademark Girl Scout disappointed look that I’m sure they give a patch for.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said the MILF. “We’ll never tell. Right girls?”

“We’ll never-ever tell,” said all three virtually in unison as if they’d practiced it throughout all of February at their Girl Scout/MILF coven meetings.

It was all over for me. All I could say was,

“Samoas.”

There is another ritual started up about this time of year: The bitching about how Boy Scouts get to go out on hikes and learn how to tie knots & start fires & build campsites & what-not…and the Girls Scouts crochet & sell cookies.

I know of a certain indignant mother who has sufficiently piqued by the lack of local scouting resources for girls, that she’s about to start her own Girl Scout troop. But someone else will have to do the hiking & camping with the young charges. She’s found plenty of other mothers enthused about the setting things right, the rallying, the organizing, the getting it all started, but so far the enthusiasm wanes when it comes to the outdoor stuff.

Does she think the man has been born who’s stupid enough to take a bunch of girls out in the woods by himself? No, she doesn’t. But the mommas are all waiting for some other momma to do this part. Within the community of females, this particular task has deteriorated into yet another thing “somebody should” come along and do, like a Pokemon creature or Rumpelstiltskin perhaps…someday.

Meanwhile, the men & boys trek out there, tie their knots, cook their s’mores and have a blast. Somewhere there’s a Dad or two who managed to find the time. The girls sell cookies. Can’t you just hear the grievance engine revving up for the next blast? Three guesses where the blame is going to land, and the first two don’t count…

Well you know — I think it all evens out. I’m one of the very, very few who manage to invent excuses successfully, and charge past, leaving the neat stacks of cookie boxes untouched and uninspected. The girls pile back in to the Navigator and head to from whence they came, with far fewer cookie boxes than they brought. I’m sure they’re hauling in a whole lot more cash than the boys, who are still limping along on the donations from the Christmas tree pick-up.

Thus it is in the “real,” grown-up, world. They say the world is run by men in neckties and black socks. But to whatever extent that may be true, it isn’t a complete power monopoly is it? Not when people tend to want to give cash to cute girls and women. Who wants to hand money over to a dude? There’s something in us that makes it seem natural to give money to chicks. I pay my car insurance by handing a check to a lovely looking lady sitting at a reception desk. Ditto for the car payment…the phone bill I pay by computer when their system is working, if it isn’t, I pay it by phone. The person who forces the computer to take my money is always female. Power company: Computer. Rent: Gorgeous females. Gas: Computer, and I think it was a disembodied female voice who took my money when the computer was down that one time…

Jane Jetson When I have the oil changed in the car, a guy does the labor…or two guys, or who knows maybe ten or twenty. Probably just one or two. But not a skirt in sight. Once the chariot is all put back together again, I amble over to the front counter and give the money to a female at a computer before driving off. I don’t know if the guys ever see the money.

Child support. We don’t even need to go there.

When I have my hair cut, there’s a possibility that it’ll be a guy engaging in the un-guy-ish occupation of doing the cutting. It’s not that remote, either; about one in five. Funny thing is, if it’s a lady wielding the scissors, I’ve noticed about half the time she’ll walk over to the cash register with me, ring up the sale, and thank me for the tip. If it’s a guy who does the cutting, he’ll wish me a nice day and grab a broom to sweep up. Then I go to the cash register by myself. To hand the money to a cute girl who thanks me for the tip.

I haven’t forked over money to a dude, since the last time a pizza was delivered to my door. Actually that’s the only time I can remember ever giving a man money: pizza deliveries. We, as humans, just are not wired to hand money to the guys. It’s not in our DNA. We are conditioned and trained and evolved to give money to females & computers…or computers & females. The computer thing is, obviously, an efficiency/quantity kind of thing, and it’s a modern, recent thing. It can’t have anything to do with evolution…although at times it certainly does look that way. The females? That is in our genetic set-up. Releasing things of value into the possession of females. We’re built to do it. They’re cute. Their eyelashes are longer.

So yes, boys sleep under the stars and, consequently, learn to do some cool stuff. But it’s a little tough to get worked up about males running the world when the handling of the money that makes the world go, is about as dominated by females as, uh…well, lately we’re becoming extra civilized and gender-bendy, aren’t we, and I’m having trouble thinking of anything else besides money-handling that hasn’t gone all coed-diverse. Not nursing or secretary-ing or airplane-stewardess-ing. Childbirth maybe?

So I think this is healthy, all-in-all, in that it reflects the world into which the girls & boys in scouting now, will eventually grow as they become adults. Might as well teach ’em now: Girls take money. Ergo, girls sell things. Boys can certainly try. I sold newspaper or magazine subscriptions or something when I was a boy scout. Didn’t exactly set the world on fire, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Maybe I should have tried a cartwheel or two.

I’m with Gerard. I LOVES me some Girl Scout Moms and Thin Mints, and I’ve been known to eat a whole box at a single sitting. Both kinds. 🙂

As for the women and money thang? I read it. Most of it. Well, part of it.
- bpenni | 03/10/2011 @ 12:20
If one is to believe the commercials…
Girl Scout “outings” involve the troop involved in nuclear research with an electron microscope, supervising the installation of solar power arrays,
or discussing important world issues with important world “activists”.

There seems to be a rise in a trend of those GS “activist” moms ripping off the cookie jar.

Eating a whole package of GS cookies in one pop is easier than it used to be, what, with so many less in the box. And the little darlings have to sell BIG VOLUME to take advantage of the low profit margin.

Samoas. About eight-ten seconds in the microwave. Ice cold glass of milk.
They’re freakin’ CRACK to me.
Then again, so are the only slightly stale 2/$1.00, pound-and-a-half packages of lemon/vanilla stuffed cookies for sale at Drugs-R-Us/ Dollar-Mart, etc.
- CaptDMO | 03/10/2011 @ 22:22
When I have the oil changed in the car, a guy does the labor…

See, now, if YOU changed you oil/filters, you’d be handing over
LESS cash, to guys, well versed in the economic disparity of American manufacturing and Chinese import policy, at the NAPA /Pep Boys counter.
- CaptDMO | 03/10/2011 @ 22:32
Right. If I was born 30 years earlier I’d park the thing in the street and drain the oil. I’d store the used oil in the garage and I’d use it, in the winter time, to help out with my brush fire. During the long lazy summer days while I’m saving up that used oil, after I got done changing it, I’d cherry-pick the engine. Maybe tear apart the rear diff and pack the bearings and I’d do it all for kicks, just so the wives would see me in a ripped up old tee shirt and wish their husbands looked like me…even though I’m shaped like a pear and have no “ab” definition whatsoever. And you know what? I’d drink beer the entire time. From bottles. And when I was done with the bottles I’d shatter them. With a gun. In my own back yard. With a caliber that begins with “3” or higher. Then I’d teach my kid to do it.

Now then…how many 2011 California pain-in-the-ass laws did I just fantasize about breaking in that one short paragraph, before we even get to my blogger-ab-definition?

It’s a nanny-state world or a man’s world. Can’t be both. Never, never, not ever. Mutually exclusive things.
- mkfreeberg | 03/10/2011 @ 23:11
I should clarify to say…I’d drink the beer on a Saturday and shatter the glassware on a Sunday. Everyone knows gunpowder & alcohol don’t mix.
- mkfreeberg | 03/11/2011 @ 19:32

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Cookie GirlsThursday, March 10th, 2011

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Thursday, March 10th, 2011