Wherein the Girl Scouts Thwart Andrew Once Again

I have a long history with the Girl Scouts and their cookies. Growing up, how many times did I wish it were socially acceptable to defect over from the Boy Scouts. Popcorn? Please. Those cookies!* And yet, throughout all the years of my Thin Mint- and Tagalong-enriched life I can never seem to find a Scout selling cookies. Never. To this very day, I've never bought my own cookies.

Growing up, we had a steady supply coming every cookie season through the typical mom's-coworker's-daughters channel. In college, it was the same, only through the mail up to me. Ever since moving to New York, though, they've been harder to come by. No one goes door to door here, and most grocery stores won't let them stand out front with a little table. The Girl Scouts have a Cookie Finder website, but every time I enter my zip code it says that cookie season for New York has ended. There's a place to put in your email address, but I've been on that mailing list for two years now, and have never gotten an email notice of cookie season.

Somehow, all these years, those Scouts have managed to elude me—which is surprising given that it's a fundraiser and I'm more than willing to contribute. So I've spent the last few years in the city pandering for delicious scraps from colleagues and coworkers who live in the suburbs, or getting lucky and calling home to Michigan when there happen to be some around my mom's house.

Tonight I happened upon a blog post of a friend of mine who has been involved with the Girl Scouts for many years. She quotes the following passage from a GS newsletter:

Try a Girl Scouts’ Thin Mint Blizzard at Dairy Queen
Are you craving Girl Scout Thin Mints – America’s favorite Girl Scout cookie? You’re in luck. Girl Scouts of the USA and International Dairy Queen have created a national partnership, including a Girl Scouts’ Thin Mint Blizzard, which will be the featured blizzard of the month for July.

Dairy Queen will also have a special “Dairy Queens’ Girl Scouts Appreciation Week” July 7-13, in which local Girl Scout service units and troops can host informational booths about Girl Scouts, the new Girl Scout Leadership Experience, camps, and all the other great Girl Scout programs and activities for all girls in kindergarten through grade 12.

Thin Mints and Dairy Queen? Could a better union ever be conceived? Naturally, I went immediately to Google to find the nearest DQ. Jersey City, of course. Funny how something 3.3 miles from my apartment can be so far away. Heck, my office is 4 miles away. But my office is in Manhattan, and Jersey City is in, well, Jersey. The Hudson is a far more effective barrier to those east of it than those west of it.

Still, July and August are busy travel months for me. In the next few weeks I'll be in North Carolina and California, and I'm hoping to head down to Baltimore or up to Boston as well. One thing's for certain, my eyes will be open along the way.

* I heartily support both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts organizations. I mean no disrespect to either having been a Boy Scout myself. But really, popcorn? Come on guys.