Your Guide to Girl Scout Cookies

Lewen- That would be entirely possible. There's been some other stuff over the years that felt pretty vivid, but turned out to be a bit confused. :)

pecan sandies? That's a keebler cookie, my dear. i think you are misremembering your childhood.

I didn't see Pecan Sandies on their list. When I was little I sold them and they were my grandma's favorite and I haven't seen them since I've been grown. My hubby swears he's never even heard of those. They were a pecan shortbread cookie. Where we live is in the Little Brownie Bakers zone.

Manticore, sounds like a bit of confirmation bias. Granted, I was a cookie-slinger about 20 years ago, but my mother (a real estate agent at the time) gave me mini-seminars on pitching a sale, closing the sale, giving a good handshake, etc. I always knew exactly how much from each box of cookies I sold came back to my troop, and what sales thresholds I had to meet in order to get 'scholarships' to attend Girl Scout summer camps that my parents would've been otherwise unable to afford.

Helicopter parenting is a problem in all of modern US society currently, but definitely not a unique facet of Girl Scout cookie sales. There are still plenty of girls out there whose parents and troop leaders who are supportively hands-off.

As a foreigner, I'd always assumed that 'Girl Scout cookies' were either home baked by the girl or her parents, or a collaborative effort by the whole troop. To realise now that they're a branded item that children are sent out to sell... wow. What a marketing strategy and a con. How much of that money goes to the girl and/or her troop? How much goes to the company that manufactures these? To advertising? etc etc.

As for these 'fakes' that the article addresses... I wasn't aware that these bakeries can claim that a round biscuit with a minty middle and dark chocolate outer coating was unique to the Girl Scouts. The packaging doesn't even try to fool you, they're just mint biscuits. What a ridiculous claim.