Living plastic free: Girl Guide Cookies

Ah, the first signs of Spring have appeared.  

When I was a prairie-girl, you knew it was spring when you saw the year’s first dead gopher splattered on the side of the road. I kid you not.

Thankfully, here on the west coast, spring is heralded by much lovelier signs: cherry blossoms, magnolia blooms, and the appearance of Girl Guides hawking their cookies. 

But this year, I’ve sworn off letting any new plastic into my life, and alas, I declare it with a heavy heart – that’ means Girl Guide Cookies are off limits for 2007. Because those little femme-fatale-concoctions are lovingly nestled in cradles of plastic.  

(Notice how EnviroWoman now momentarily lapses into a rare ‘glass half empty’ point of view.) 

Now I gotta say, this all SUCKS BIG TIME. I don’t like being the CookieScrooge. Because it gives me a thrill to support these WeeWomen by purchasing their sugary morsels. They always seem so triumphant when your cold hard cash lands in their pink little palms. Donald Trumpettes in the making. Too, too cute.  

Plus, it’s a semi-annual tradition to leave a GirlGuideGift on MyNeighbour’s doorstep. And this year I can’t. Her and I have a quid pro quo pact …she supports my sugar habit…I support her’s. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and already the Bunny-Next-Door has visited - her doorstoop is graced with ribbon-festooned boxes stuffed with an ooey-gooey cinnamon bun and a choclately-cheesecake…and my doorstep is graced with foil covered Easter Eggs, and a little Purdy’s Easter-bun-bun (that one’s wrapped in plastic, so I’m gonna have to re-gift it to someone else – MyNeighbour is unaware I have magically morphed into the ‘plastic-is-my-pariah’ EnviroWoman this year). 

Anyhoo, it’s just a crying shame EnviroWoman has had to break with the circle of sugar-GirlGuide-love. You'd think she'd be able to loosen up the sphincter a bit on this one - but she's starting to feel a bit like the poster-girl for plastic redemption, so has to stick to her guns.

(Now notice how EnviroWoman makes a brave attempt to take her usual ‘glass half full’ perspective on this sad, bleak, dark-well-of-despair situation) 

Well, at least I have another 6 months to prepare myself for the fact I can’t buy any of their Chocolately Mint Girl Guide cookies this October – because those ones are REALLY TO DIE FOR. Way better than the Spring line of ‘Classic’ cookies. It’s gonna take everything I’ve got not to be tempted into MAJOR SIN when those little puppies get waved in front of my sugar-zombied (and by October, probably sugar-deprived-zombied) eyes by some cute little jelly-bean of a girl. So it’s probably a good thing I’ll have plenty of time to prepare my inner fortitude. 

(Now notice how EnviroWoman makes a plea to live vicariously through you, dear reader) 

Now, I hear through the grapevine, some of you folks who read my rants have actually started giving up plastic in your own lives. And I think that’s MAGIC. We all have to break our addiction to petroleum so we don’t burn up the planet.  

But can you do EnviroWoman this one favour…go buy some GirlGuide cookies. Commit a plastic SIN on my behalf, so I don’t have to. Give the little darlin’s a thrill and buy their cookies. Just ‘cuz I can’t, doesn’t mean YOU can’t partake of this annual Spring tradition and welcome in the season of hope and renewal.  

Lessons Learned

• Sometimes it sucks to be EnviroWoman!
• In emergencies you have to save the Mother first, before tending to the child. Like when the yellow oxygen masks fall from the overhead bins in a plummeting airplane, or when the MotherShip is burning up due to global warming.
• The glass is always 100% full. 50% with water, 50% with air. Take that Mensa!