Flyover People Daily News

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

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COOKIE TIME

You hear the rumors around town and so you expect your doorbell to ring.

When it does, there’s a girl child standing on your porch wearing her Girl Scout sash over her coat because it’s January and 23 degrees outside. And that makes you wonder why children are selling door-to-door during freezing temperatures in January – just as half the town has begun New Year’s resolutions to lose weight.

Regardless of the calendar placement of Girl Scout Cookie Time, a mother stands at the sidewalk while the girl on my porch looks me in the eye and asks, “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”

“Which are your favorites?” I question the scout as she hands me the order form.

“Thin Mints,” she begins, and I take her list under advisement although I know I will be ordering the peanut butter sandwich cookies (known as Savannahs in my day) and, um, let’s see, the peanut butter patties.

As a kid growing up in Pawnee Rock, I was required to sell two things: Girl Scout cookies when I was in grade school, and magazines when I was a high school junior (to pay for prom.) But kids today tend to be called on quite frequently to be salesmen, raising money for schools or organizations.

As an adult, I’ve purchased candles, wrapping paper, cookies, popcorn, candy, and my favorite item to date: Fanestil’s bacon and sausage. With that fundraiser (bacon!), I was able support not only the group selling it, but also a fine local business.

I tend to purchase something from kids who stop by because I know that being in sales can make the milk in a child’s stomach go sour. If I do turn someone down, I try my best to be gentle. When a young one stands at my door, I always remember Mrs. Carl Johnson.

Forty years ago when I wore a green sash and was raising money for Troop 4, one of my friends and I set out peddling cookies.

As a shy 9-year-old, the thought of trying to sell something gave me the same quivering legs I had when climbing the high dive ladder at the Larned pool – I knew there was no way I was going to live through this.

Anyway, a friend and I walked down the street one Saturday in Pawnee Rock armed with pencils and our order forms which included the script: “Hello, my name is ______. It’s Girl Scout Cookie Time! Would you like to place your order with me?”

I practiced the night before, practiced and practiced. When you’re a kid, you take these things to heart, no matter how stilted the script sounds.

I don’t remember for sure, but probably the reason my friend and I ended up three blocks from my home for our first sale attempt, is that we’d walk by a house and say, “Oh, no, not that one,” trying to put off the inevitable agony of climbing steps of a porch and knocking on the door.

For whatever reason, the Johnson home was the first place we stopped. They had a ton of kids, about nine of them, and to me it seemed unlikely that they would spend money on overpriced cookies.

Mrs. Johnson answered the door. Pawnee Rock was a small town and the Johnsons knew me and I knew them, but not well. I’d never been on their porch, for instance, and had probably never had a conversation with this woman.

The interior of the two-story house was dark behind Mrs. Johnson as she stood on her porch and examined the order form. She didn’t act like I was asking for the world, so that was a relief. She took my pencil and filled in her name. When she handed back the form, I saw that she had ordered two boxes of cookies.

Two boxes! My quivering legs became wings. Having faced my personal demon and won, I floated off that porch. Maybe Mrs. J. actually wanted Girl Scout cookies, or perhaps she was just being kind to a terrified little girl making her first sale.

Regardless of her motivation, every time some kid trudges up my porch steps and rings the bell, it’s the memory of Mrs. Johnson that gives me a hit of compassion, a moment of understanding for the child standing in front of me.

Copyright 2010 ~ Cheryl Unruh

Cheryl columns, life on the ground