two years ago i was talked into doing something so far out of my wheelhouse i am still stunned it happened. my second grader wanted to join the brownie troop at her school and it was full. the troop leaders said, “you can start another one… it’s just doing arts and crafts after school once a month for an hour or so.” i like arts and crafts and i generally like little girls and i like to be inside (which is where i assumed the arts and crafts would happen) and there was another mother who would be my co-leader. so i told my daughter i would do it. then the truth started coming out. turns out, the brownies are a part of the girl scouts. (i should know this, as i actually WAS a brownie when i was in second grade, but i had somehow buried this important information.) the girl scouts are all about nature and camping and outdoorsy stuff (unlike me… i am all about reading and sleeping in my bed and watching movies and indoor stuff) and selling cookies and do-gooding and it can go on for YEARS… not just second grade. also, i had to fill out tons of forms and register and attend a training session for several hours in a church basement. 

(the only known photo of me as a brownie… i’m the one scowling in the shadows!)

i am not very comfortable in churches, especially in a basement at night. this particular church was very hard to find - isolated somewhere out in the nature and the google maps lady was not helpful in directing me. when i did finally find it, the doors were all locked and i was overwhelmed by the idea that i was being tricked into a perverted trafficking situation and no one would ever be able to find me again. eventually, however, our trainer, dharma, answered the door.

dharma was in her late sixties, tall and whippet thin with long, stringy gray hair. she had been her daughter’s troop leader for decades and now spent her time training future troop leaders. the other trainees were mostly suburban mothers, but there was one super enthusiastic lady who had no daughter at all and just wanted to be a part of the brownies. she already knew ALL of the girl scout songs and had purchased the big binder and her brown leader outfit. she completely freaked me out.

dharma led us through a typical brownie meeting (which took at least two hours) and ended by teaching us her favorite go-to game for when the girls get antsy… it was called “poor pussy.” mind you, this training took place about two weeks after the trump/billy bush “access hollywood” tape was leaked and “pussy” was a particularly incendiary word. i couldn’t believe that dharma hadn’t heard about the tape or been exposed to the huge debate that was dominating the news cycle. perhaps she was so naturey that she didn’t have a TV? so we all had to get in a circle and dharma crawled around the middle meowing. she approached me (of course!) and i had to pat her on the head and murmur, “poor pussy, poor pussy.” i was then supposed to become the cat and approach someone else.

(bush and trump just after exiting the infamous access hollywood bus…)

i could not wait to get out of there… my heart was pumping at a wholly unhealthy rate with anxiety, dread and deep remorse as i drove home. upon arrival, i pounded two glasses of warm white wine (all i had in the house - i DID drop some ice cubes in, but they didn’t have a chance to chill my wine as i drank it so fast) and got in my pajamas and my nice, safe bed. i couldn’t believe i had committed myself to this potentially life-long nature job.

my co-troop leader was really excited and organized (thank goodness!) and it quickly became clear that she was the true leader and i would be the vanna white to her pat sajak. the girls were delighted to be brownies and kept lobbying for more frequent meetings and to sell the girl scout cookies … two prospects i shamefully tried to discourage. i must say, there are a lot of good values and lessons the brownies teach, but also a lot of thought and planning and energy that must go into it (which i didn’t help with, but i knew my co-leader was doing it and it made me feel really guilty.)

so the second year we doubled the meetings (we also recruited another mom so i continued to vanna only once a month) and the new mom managed the cookie sales. i wasn’t too flapped by the cookies because lucy’s dad works in a big office and i figured she could toddle around there for an afternoon and knock out her required allotment of boxes. unfortunately, i found out that his office has a policy against children selling things. since cookie sales also coincided with blizzard season in boulder, i had a problem. i was not interested in trudging through the blinding snow to sell cookies, so we decided to eat them all. consuming fifty boxes of cookies is no small task, but i thought it was the least i could do since i was not really helping with anything else.

some of the girls in our troop sold way more than the required amount and we raised enough money to pay for a field trip. after much discussion, the girls voted to go camping at the denver zoo. now i knew i was really in over my head. the experience was called “bunking with the beasts” and we arrived at the zoo in the early evening. of course lucy and i had to borrow sleeping bags and mats from our neighbor because we don’t camp. (well… lucy HAS gone on overnights with her summer camp, but i have certainly never gone along with her. i haven’t camped since my early twenties when my pushy boyfriend whose eyes were too close together - according to my father - convinced me to go one weekend and it was awful.) we set up camp in a conference room with a really mangy rug that had probably hosted thousands of brownies. now some of you may not think it was true camping, since we slept indoors, but i was not in my bed and i was not in a hotel, so it was camping to me.) 

we got to tour the zoo at night, which WAS pretty thrilling… all the nocturnal animals, like the lions and leopards, were prowling around and howling, instead of just sleeping like when you see them during the day. of course, i couldn’t help but envision them escaping, just like the dinos in jurassic park, and eating up all the cute little brownie girls. luckily, no one was consumed by a tiger, or even one of the grumpy geese who were strutting around too.

naturally, the girls were all excited and went to bed quite late. we hardly got any sleep and one little brownie rooster woke everyone up at 5:30 am. so by the time we loaded back into the car at 10:30 am, it felt like mid day. lucy and i came straight home, unpacked our suitcase and put absolutely everything into the wash. then we took lengthy, thorough showers and put on fresh, clean clothes, followed by a nice long lunch out (i was way too tired to cook) with a fat glass of wine (lucy had a stiff lemonade.) finally, we went to the “relaxing station” an impromptu massage place where you don’t need an appointment. usually we only get forty minute massages, but that day we stayed for an hour since we were in recovery. i think we are okay now, just waiting to see if we contracted ebola from the rug where we slept, ate and played with some of the animals… i am not sure how long it takes for the symptoms to present.

(this is what ebola looks like, FYI)

* you will be relieved to know that i have officially resigned from the brownies. after two years, the girls are flying up to become “junior girl scouts” and i think they deserve a leader who likes to be outside.

to read more about girl scout cookies, click here