the orange box in the mail.

I went to the mailbox this afternoon and found a large envelope sent from rural Illinois, where I grew up.  I tore through the manila paper and out tumbled an orange box.  It was a box of “Do-Si-Dos,” the Girl Scout version of a peanut butter sandwich cookie.

Now I’ve received some pretty fantastic things in the mail over the years.  As a kid growing up in a rural town, we sometimes ordered clothing from catalogs.  Finding the Lands’ End box on our driveway usually meant that my summer bathing suit had arrived.  In college, my mother would write me letters about the happenings at home, always including a little cash.  Separately my father would also send cash, although it was typically folded inside a bank statement or recall notice for my car.  A couple of years ago I discovered Amazon Prime, a genius service that will send you almost anything from Amazon.com in 2 business days.  I use it regularly to order all kinds of things, including books and household supplies.  While I still get excited to see a box at our front door, I will say that receiving a box of papers towels is about as exciting as it sounds.

An unexpected delivery of Girl Scout Cookies, however, is a rare treat.  Since my days as a Girl Scout, I have loved these cookies and enjoyed them at this time almost every year.  Back then, I would secretly sneak an entire sleeve and retreat to the basement of our house to eat my cookies in peace.  When both my sister and I were in Girl Scouts, my ever supportive parents would order a large quantity of cookies to support two separate troops.  For longer storage, some of the boxes were stuffed in the freezer in the basement.  Only then did I discover the merits of frozen peanut butter sandwich cookies.  And since they were already being stored in the basement freezer, I didn’t have to sneak them under my t-shirt or a pile of laundry to get them into the basement without my parents knowing.  There they sat, waiting for me to devour their salty, sweet, crunchy goodness that only came around once each year.

In the 80’s and 90’s when I was developing my deep love of peanut butter Girl Scout cookies, the phrase “salty-sweet” was as about as obscure as Google and Twitter.  In those days, no one thought to add a sprinkle of salt to the top of a cookie or brownie to highlight the sweetness.  Can you imagine a Chips Ahoy cookie with salt on it?  I cannot.  The combination of salty and sweet in the peanut butter sandwich cookies is undeniably what sets them apart from the rest of the Girl Scout pack.  Indeed, these cookies were ahead of their time.  Back then, we didn’t have a fancy label to give them; we simply knew that they were good.

The cookies were a gift from my sister, Kim.  She lives in Illinois with her husband and my niece, who will be two this autumn.  In addition to her roles as wife and mother, my sister also works full time, cooks dinner most nights, cleans her house every Saturday morning, regularly hosts large parties for her friends, and apparently still has time to send her older sister a box of Girl Scout cookies.  These examples, as well as countless others, are proof that my younger sister is actually a better person than me.  She is more organized, more thoughtful, harder working; the girl can get sh*t done.

If being the underachieving older sister earns me a box of Girl Scout cookies in the mail, I’m all for it.