Unprepared...Again

Ms. Judith Gordon Low, middle, the founder of Girl Scouts. Her eagle-eye is not helping my feelings of inadequacy. Looks a little like Hal Holbrook in drag, I'm afraid. The girl she's holding hands with to her left is a Perfect Scout. Girl to her right is unprepared.



OK, I have to say right out front I was never a big fan of Girl Scouts. Brownies were fine...lots of six and seven year olds frolicking together with no purpose, doing the things Brownies generally do in cute chocolate milk-brown outfits. But then, Brownies must end and here comes the real thing-the adult looking itchy moss green, stretch belted, A-line uniform with the empty, flopping huge badge sash placed strategically across your chest. Here we were, about ten or eleven; right at the time you start to think, "hey I'm getting close to the age where I can actually do some bad things" and bam, you are beamed into a pint-sized sorority whose motto is watch out, be careful, danger's lurking, so "Be Prepared." I guess I was not very prepared as a child, so I saw this motto to be especially threatening and unobtainable. After all, this group was founded as protection from the Progressive Movement in the U.S. Well, dang-it, when I was ten it was the sixties and I sort of wanted to be progressive. At meetings, I observed these perfect Scouts with heavy badge laden sashes earned for things that I had always assumed were just a normal part of life...swimming, hiking, cooking, photography, ironing (yes). And these perfect Scouts, I suspected they were really earning these things, following all the rules and having an official good time as impressed professionals signed off on their badges. None of it made much sense to me and I became a little suspicious of what was really going on and what the big picture was. I picked badges that were easily fudged and required no official signature other than your mother's. I tried to sew the badges on my sash, but they ended up looking a little like Frankenweenie (maybe shouldn't have faked the sewing badge). I was confused by this competition, yet still guiltily admired these perfect Scouts, but yes, I was a badge fudger. It seemed we waited forever for those few coveted badges to arrive and I feared they were being manufactured by some special man behind the curtain who just might know the truth. If E-bay had been in existence then, we badge fudgers would have had it made, but instead, we sweated it out as the competition and feelings of inadequacy grew during the bare-sash year. Oh well, I probably never gave it much chance since I was only in Scouts for a year (except for the one week I joined later just to go on a Scout camping weekend with a friend), and I know they probably do a lot of good stuff, but I can't help but approach their endeavors with a little left over suspicion. So, here we are, just at our weakest as far as the old eating good thing goes. Our New Year's resolve is beginning to wear thin, Lent has just started (increase in temptation), Fat Tuesday (stomach still stretched) has just passed, we are in the throes of cold-hibernating-lets-eat-weather, we have been plastered in front of the TV watching the Olympics and American Idol, and we are HUNGRY, by God. And this happens. You can't tell me their timing isn't a little calculated. And as always, I am never prepared for their power over me.

(The perfect Scout who came up with the ingenious idea of cookie sales as a fundraiser was named Candy Cane...she sounds prepared, doesn't she.)

My favorite, Lemonaides, in the refrigerator. One box lasted forty-eight hours.