"Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"*

             What's going on with The Girl Scouts of The United States of America? How come, whenever they're depicted in a movie their name is changed? It'll be Wilderness Girls, or Girl Campers or Female Firestarters or Adolescent Hunter-Gatherer Dames of The Country in the Middle of North America. But they're never called Girl Scouts on TV or in the movies. Never. And I got to thinking that was kind of suspicious and so I started doing a little Girl Scout reconnaissance. (Alright, the term "reconnaissance" is misleading. I didn't send a satellite to hover over a well-known Girl Scout campground. I didn't even hide in some bushes and take notes while they sang "Kumbayah" and grilled up some hobo sandwiches. Are they still calling them hobo sandwiches or is that P.I. (politically incorrect)? All I really did was look online at their website.)

             March 12th is the Girl Scouts hundred year anniversary, it turns out. And the gal who started the scouts, Juliette Gordon Low, taught that first troop of gals how navigate by the stars, camp, hike, identify poison ivy, do first aid and play basketball. (I thought it was weird that she taught them to play basketball since, in my mind, basketball's only been around since about 1940. So I had to research basketball, too, just to see if the Girl Scouts were lying to me. But yeah, basketball's been around since 1891, officially. And before that since the time people began throwing things into or through other things. So forever, really.)

             Okay, I had a point, I swear, but it escapes me at the moment. I think it had something to do with how shady the Girl Scouts are about never letting anyone use their name for the sake of entertainment. Are they afraid their pristine reputation will be sullied? And why are the cookies called different things in different states? Caramel deLites are Samosas. Peanut Butter Patties are Tagalongs. Shortbread is called Trefoils? What? Why all the intentional confusion? They aren't so great! I should know. I was a Girl Scout for about two whole years. Those cookies don't sell themselves, you know. And we didn't get to go on a field trip or camping trip unless we sold enough to cover the cost. And my dad was so worried about us going door-to-door selling stuff (not to mention keenly empathetic to those who feel compelled to buy crap from school children) that my parents usually ended up buying my cookies. And then sticking them in the freezer. And I always felt kind of bad because not only did I not actually, physically sell any cookies, my parents were essentially just handing me a check and begging for it to be over. (If I were a parent, I would do precisely this same thing. Who wants their pre-adolescent child ringing the doorbells of the sad and lonely?)

            And those badges were hard to earn and then you had to spend hours sewing them onto your sash, only to find that when you progressed into a different level of Girl Scout (Daisy, Brownie, Junior, etc.) you got a new sash and effectively lost all those badges you'd worked so hard to get. 

Phyllis and Hannah Nefler "Do the Freddie" in Troop Beverly Hills.

            And one time, I peed my brown Brownie uniform (clever color choice, that) at the Girl Scout Jamboree. It was quite ironic, actually, because I was partnered up and holding hands with a girl who wet her pants every day at school until fourth grade, and I finally had an inkling of her ongoing humiliation. And she was perhaps the most understanding person in the world to pee your pants in front of, if you had to pee your pants. And I did, because I couldn't find the stupid bathroom.

             I'm sure this makes it seem like I've had a lifelong vendetta against the Girl Scouts and that I've been plotting a way to get back at them for years, and I haven't, I promise! Unless it turns out somewhere down the line that they're some sort of front for a sex-slave ring (which, okay, they probably aren't), I will maintain that they're doing their best to make little girls plucky and resourceful. Making them work their heinies off for the opportunity to sleep on dirt with spiders. But I am dying to know why they can't allow their precious name to be used for entertainment value. It's just a little bit suspicious. That's all I'm saying.

            

             And don't be surprised if this post gets taken down because the Girl Scouts won't allow me to write their name in this blog.

*This quote from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948) makes me especially happy because in Troop Beverly Hills (Jeff Kanew, 1989) they copy this same line. BUT, because the Girl Scouts of The United States of America clearly won't allow the use of their name or anything about them, Troop Beverly Hills had to call themselves "The Wilderness Girls" and the badges "patches." So the line is, "Patches? We don't need no stinking patches!"

"They tell you to locate your nearest emergency exit. I do this immediately! I say, 'Let's see... I'll go around the fat fuck... step on the widow's head... push those children out of the way... knock down the paralyzed midget, and get out of the plane where I can help others.'"*

Marcy and Me Part III

This is the final chapter of my flight to Omaha with boozy Marcy, which I mention in great detail both here and here.

            Marcy had just finished describing how her boyfriend (a man named Greg with really bad aim and even worse luck) had fractured his urethra on her pubic bone during “the act.” This, as I said before, was a feat I did not know possible. (But it is! Look at this!)

            Marcy seemed as worn out by telling the story as I was deeply disturbed by hearing it. But I had to know how Greg had fared.

            “Oh, he went to the hospital and had to get an I.V. drip. He was there for two weeks!” Marcy explained, tossing back more chardonnay. I tipped her glass upward so she’d finish faster and get on with it (just kidding).

            “But, so…is he okay? I mean, you can’t put a cast on a guy’s ‘you-know-what.’ Can you?”

            “Of course you can’t! But he was on bed rest for weeks. And now he’s in a wheelchair, poor guy. It sucks, too, because I haven’t gotten any in quite some time.”

            “Oh, that’s too bad,” I responded, feeling really sorry for Marcy.

            “Yeah, but he’ll be fine. Right now I’m playing nurse, so that’s a drag. But he absolutely CANNOT become aroused or he’ll be in horrible pain. Which is so hard when he’s around me.”

            “Yuck,” I thought in my head.

            Not long after Marcy’s hideous story, my mind still reeling from the imagery that had been permanently burned onto my brain, the flight attendants started down the aisle with warm chocolate chip cookies.

            Marcy and I chatted about more innocuous things while eating our cookies and washing them down with chardonnay and tomato juice, respectively (neither a good taste combo, I’ve discovered. Surprising!). 

This picture provided solely to break up the retinal monotony of this post.

            She gave me her business card before we landed, I guess in case I wanted to hear any more stories or meet up over the holiday weekend with her and Greg. And before deplaning, she hugged me good-bye. Drunk people are so sweet.

            By baggage claim I looked for her (and perhaps a chubby guy in a wheelchair) but I didn’t see her. And I was beyond excited to see my family after the longest separation of my life, so it’s possible I wasn’t paying close enough attention.

            I’ve since sat next to many other crazies on airplanes. I draw them like a magnet. There was the lady in a parka that smelled like pee and asked me if I liked to talk or if I was “one of those people who just like to sleep on the airplane.” When I responded that I was, indeed, a sleeper she said, “Too bad. Because I’m a talker.” I was lucky enough to switch to an empty row behind her (a move for which I somehow felt the need to apologize).

            Then there was the woman who spent the entire flight talking about how her son had done a lot of jail time, but not just because of the time he got caught smoking in an airplane lavatory. “They really do have smoke detectors in there, you know.”

            Airplanes are hilariously odd when you think about how many people are crammed into such a small space and hurled through the air together at incredibly high speeds. It’s actually weird that most of us choose not to talk to each other and either read a book or take a nap instead. I can’t think of any other situation where I’d be so comfortable falling asleep in a public place or leaving my purse next to a complete stranger while I go to the bathroom. But have a conversation? No way!

            I’m just crossing my fingers that the next bizarre encounter I have on an airplane involves a normal but incredibly attractive man, because those guys always seem to be sitting somewhere else. Maybe they take trains?

*Quote from George Carlin.