The doorbell rang while I was fixing supper tonight. That was slightly annoying in itself, but then a mere three seconds later, it rang again, twice -- two impatient rings one right after the other. That really pissed me off. "I'm coming!" I shouted gruffly, wiping my hands on a kitchen towel as I walked. My tiny dog had started barking at the first ding, not even waiting for the dong. She was sure somebody was coming to steal our stuff.
I pulled open the door and saw standing on the front stoop two girls who looked to be about 12 years old. They were both dressed in mismatched, loudly patterned slacks and tops that their mothers should have forbade them to wear, had hair that needed laundering, especially to get the purple out, and wore, on top of all that, extremely sullen expressions. One was texting diligently on her cell phone. She never took her eyes off the device. The other only glanced in my direction and said something I couldn't hear because the killer Chihuahua was having a stroke, but I looked down and saw she was holding a small shopping bag containing several boxes of Girl Scout cookies. I said I had already bought cookies from someone else. She did not seem surprised nor disappointed, and they both turned and walked away. The texter continued her thumb gymnastics as she went.
Okay, Girl Scouts of America. If you want to sell me more cookies, here's what you do:
1. Show up at my door in uniform.
2. Do not come just before or during the dinner hour.
3. Ring the bell once and wait politely. If the door is not answered in what you consider a reasonable period of time, go quietly away.
4. Smile at me.
5. Ask me in a cheerful, audible tone if I'd like to help the Girl Scouts by buying a box of cookies.
6. If I say no, thank me and say you'll try to get to me earlier next year.
7. If I say yes -- well, you will sell a ton of condos some day.
No comments:
Post a Comment