Family sorts out cookie business

Every year at this time our living room resembles a cookie warehouse.

It's stacked so full of boxes of Girl Scout cookies that we have to erect a safety gate to keep our pet pooch, Cassie, from devouring the tasty treats.

Cassie loves to eat anything and everything -- including those famous cookies.

With two daughters in Girl Scouts, we're well versed in the cookie culture. We can tell the types of cookies just by the colors of the boxes.

We still have "Thin Mints" in our freezer from last year's cookie campaign. We're never short of Girl Scout cookies in our house.

Becca and Bailey used to love to help sort the boxes of cookies. But the thrill has worn off. Now they would just as soon leave it to mom and dad to handle the task.

I don't blame them. It's not the most exciting job, particularly when you have to refrain from eating up all the supplies.

The key to this task is to pull out the boxes of cookies you ordered first. That way you can have some cookies to munch on while you're busy in your living room/cookie warehouse.

Joni is a pro at dividing up the cookies, bagging them and sorting them for the family to distribute.

With the different boxes of cookies at her feet, she looks at her list and quickly grabs various boxes which she puts gently into a plastic bag. She puts a note on each bag to identify the customer to whom that bag of cookies will be delivered.

As she empties each cardboard box of the stacked boxes of cookies, she throws the empty box across the room.

If Girl Scout cookie sorting were a sport, Joni would make the ESPN highlights.

Joni managed to handle the sorting task Sunday night while watching the Academy Awards. Most moms are like that. They have that ability to do multiple tasks at the same time.

I watched Joni's cookie-box sorting skills with pride and amazement.

I'm not even on the same playing field with Joni when it comes to such sorting skills.

With "Lord of the Rings" winning everything in sight on the Academy Awards show, the only suspense was whether we had all the cookies we needed to fill our orders. We did and Joni had them all bagged long before the "Lord of the Rings" gang made their final appearance on the Hollywood stage.

Girl Scout cookies originated in the kitchens and ovens of Girl Scout members.

Thankfully, we no longer have to bake our own cookies. If we did, Girl Scout families would have to spend all winter stuck in their kitchens.

Cookie sales as troop fund raisers date back to at least 1917. In 1922, a Chicago Girl Scout director suggested that cookies could be sold for 25 to 30 cents a dozen. They now cost $3 a box.

But once you open a box, look out. You can't just eat one of them.

Before you know it, you've devoured six cookies without even thinking.

I appreciate all the hard work that goes into selling the cookies. But what I truly enjoy is eating them. I'm a pro at that.

Every year I look forward to March and the chance to chow down on my favorite cookies, box after box after box.

My family certainly knows that's how the cookie crumbles.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.