That's The Way It Crumbles - Cookie-Wise

"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!" This is the wisdom my son introduced to me from the computer game "Portal 2." I liked it so much, I bought him a T-shirt with this very same advice emblazoned across the front. It expresses the outrage I felt when I read about a couple of Girl Scouts in Oregon who were invited to sell six thousand boxes of their delicious cookies to a local company.
It turns out the twenty-four thousand dollar order was a hoax, and there was no one at the company who would admit to ordering thousands of Samoas, Tagalongs, and Thin Mints. It reminded me of the time when a neighbor of ours came to our door to ask me if we were interested in buying some Girl Scout cookies. I told her that I wanted a case of Thin Mints. She said, "You mean a box?" No, I assured her, I want a case. A box of boxes. I looked behind her. Waiting at the bottom of our stairs was this girl's mother. I wanted to assure her that I was on the level.
"I want a case of Thin Mints," I called down to mom.
She smiled and waved, still uncertain of my motives.
"I really like Thin Mints," I told my new Girl Scout friend as I filled out the paperwork.
For the next couple years, that same Girl Scout came to my door, never asking if I wanted my "regular," but happy that she was already well on her way to a trip to camp just by ringing my bell. Then she moved away. Now I have to scour the streets for girls with sashes, carrying boxes of cookies. It's really sad.
The good news is that the girls in Oregon were able to rally their troop around them and they organized a "fire sale" of the pre-ordered cookies. The community came out to support them, and all was right with the world again. They didn't have to invent a combustible cookie to burn anyone's house down.