Where Are My Fucking Cookies?

I was reminded today about a story from when I was 23 years old; a story involving Girl Scouts. Now, if story involving a 23 year old me and Girl Scouts makes you uneasy, I’d like to point out that I didn’t do or say anything that would have required the police to get involved. I was standing next to that guy. Big difference.

I had just moved to Tucson from Chicago, and was working in a low paying job selling construction tools to contractors over the phone. To say that this job attracted a rough and tumble bunch would be an understatement. We worked split shifts, from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM, and then from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM, six days a week. As a result, we were always tired, a condition that wasn’t helped by the fact that we were pretty much always high as well.

And because of this, we didn’t observe some of the typical office niceties that we have all come to expect in modern day society. Once we hired a stripper for the boss’s birthday, although I think that she was only a stripper in the sense that she took off her clothing before she did other, more interesting things, such as squat over our boss and pick up a lollipop from his mouth, using a very famous part of the female anatomy.

We also cursed a lot. A lot. You think I’m bad with the f-bombs now, you should’ve heard me back then. You pretty much have to swear on the phone when you’re dealing with contractors, because if you don’t, they call you a cocksucker and hang up on you, and then how are you going to fraudulently ring up $1,500 in work gloves on their credit card? So you get used to talking like a contractor, which is to say like a sailor with Tourette’s:

“Ok, so I’ve got these fucking left hand ratchets over here, and these fucking things are goddamn fucking worth their fucking weight in fucking gold, you know what I’m saying?”

“Uh, I think you have the wrong phone number, sir. This is the Shady Acres retirement home.”

“Oh, fuck, then you don’t want fucking ratchet sets, you silly motherfucker. You want fucking first aid kits! How many fucking boxes should I fucking put you down for, you fucking hump?”

But, shit, since you’ve got all those wheelchairs, I’ll put you down for a couple of dozen fucking left-handed ratchet sets as well.

And in addition to being comically profane, we were also terribly inappropriate. And not just inappropriate for the office environment; We were inappropriate for post-1400’s human society. There was not a single topic that was out of bounds, as far as we were concerned. We’d make horrible fun of everyone and everything. I remember one guy that worked there did a wonderfully hilarious impression of Stephen Hawking on acid, which was as funny as it was cringe-worthy.

Another time, we had the radio on in the background, and a relationship expert was discussing what makes women beautiful. He asked a caller when, in his opinion, a woman looks the most beautiful, and the guy kept saying things like “when she’s holding a baby,” probably because his pregnant wife was standing next to him and, insane with hormones, she would’ve goddamn murdered him if he had said anything else.

It quickly became apparent to me that the answer the guy was looking for was that a woman looks her most beautiful when she’s smiling, and so I said so aloud. A coworker said, “Well, hell, I’ll set him straight.”

To our surprise, he got through relatively quickly, and we heard him say into the phone, “Kent, a woman is at her most beautiful when her mouth is stretched over my giant, throbbing cock, and I’m pumping away as she…” The radio host had his finger on the ten second delay button, but we howled with laughter as we listened to the unrated version.

When is a woman at her least beautiful? When she’s Rosie O’Donnell.

Back to the Girl Scouts. One day, my boss decided that he was hungry for Girl Scout cookies. “So, what’s the fucking deal with that? I just call those bitches up and tell them to bring some fucking cookies over?” We sure as hell didn’t know, so after doing some hunting, he called a number that he had found for Girl Scouts of America.

Boss: Yeah, I want to buy some Girl Scout cookies. How do I go about doing that?

Woman: Oh, well that’s wonderful! But I’m afraid that our cookie sale doesn’t start until January.

Boss: So what does that mean?

Woman: There are no cookies available for sale until January. I’m sorry.

Boss: What? Listen, do not fuck with me, woman!

The conversation went downhill from there. What happened next was that my boss became obsessed with Girl Scout cookies. He started doing research on who manufactured the cookies and tried calling that company and getting them to sell him cookies right now, only to be met with rejection again.

Boss: So, you guys make Girl Scout cookies, right?

Cookie Executive: Well, yes, we do work with Girl Scouts of America to provide them with…

Boss: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody cares. Listen, I need to buy some Girl Scout cookies right now, and I’m willing to pay top dollar for them. So what’s next?

Cookie Executive: Oh, I’m afraid that I can’t help you with that. We wouldn’t want to risk losing our business relationship with…

Boss: Oh, yeah? Well how about I come down there and just fucking take some fucking Girl Scout cookies? Huh? And while I’m there, I’ll fucking come into your office and teach you a thing or fucking two about THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT! HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, ASSHOLE?

Now, I realize that my boss may come off as dangerously unhinged. That’s because he was. But he was also making these calls for our amusement as well as his own, and the morning Girl Scout obsession phone calls were the highlight of our day. One day my boss might find himself swearing at a mid-level cookie executive, the next day he might be bellowing at a congressman’s aide, demanding that his representative do something about his “goddamn rights being violated by those simpering cunts running the show over at Girl Scouts of America!” It was great entertainment.

Pictured: Great entertainment

But he really did want those cookies, and after a few weeks of receiving nothing but laughs, he got desperate. He decided to call the Girl Scouts back and act like a member of the human race, and not a serial killer on mescaline. He inquired politely, listened to the answer attentively, and with a sigh left his name and phone number. “They’re going to send some Girl Scouts over here to take my order in January,” he said dejectedly. That was six months away.

And so for the next six months, on an almost daily basis, my boss would walk into the office in the morning and demand to know if the Girl Scouts had showed up yet. “Did those fucking skank Girl Scouts show up yet? Where are my fucking cookies?” he’d bark. It became a running gag, one that sometimes expanded into an incredibly profane stand-up routine that would veer into strange and unsettling territory before all was said and done. “All I’m saying is that I didn’t catch chlamydia from a fucking toilet seat, and the only logical suspect would be those bitches over at Girl Scouts of America.”

(This is what happens when you mix weed and telemarketers.)

Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where this is headed. One afternoon, my boss walked out of his office and sat down next to me as he started up the Girl Scout routine again.

“Ok, I’m getting pretty fucking sick and tired of these whore Girl Scouts making a monkey of me. All I know is that if I don’t get some fucking cookies in me ASAP, I’m liable to go off. You know what I mean? I can’t be responsible for my actions if I don’t get a goddamn fucking Thin Mint in me motherfucking stat!”

And, of course, as I looked over his shoulder, I could see a horrified woman in the lobby with a couple of wide-eyed Girl Scouts, listening to the entire thing.

“Hey! Whoah, stop!” I said as I grabbed his arm.

“No! Don’t you fucking try to calm me down!” he said, clearly getting into the swing of his schtick. “I am an incredibly violent man, and when I don’t have my motherfucking cookies, I will cut a bitch. Yeah, I said it. I will stone cold cut a bitch! What are the fucking Girl Scouts going to do about that? Those filthy whores!”

By this point, half of the room was falling down on the floor laughing, while the other half were pointing to the lobby, trying not to piss their pants.

My boss turned around, and without missing a beat went into full-on Charm Mode. “Well, hey there! Welcome! I’m guessing that you’re the lovely little ladies who are going to help us buy some of your delicious cookies!”

It was a testament to his skills as a salesman that the troop mother didn’t mace him in the spot. Instead, she allowed herself and the two young girls to go into my boss’s office, which to me was akin to being led into Hannibal Lecter’s basement after you watched him try on another guy’s face for size.

Please, come into my office so I can sample your cookies with some fava beans and a nice chianti!

There were in there for what seemed like forever, Finally the woman and the girls left, waving and saying thank you to my boss.

He walked into the sales room, sat down, shook his head and said, “Jesus, those fucking Girl Scouts are blood-thirsty whores, you know?”

We burst into laughter as he told us how he sat down and tried to schmooze them, but when it came time to order, the troop mother made it clear that perhaps he should think about buying some more cookies since they obviously meant a lot to him. “What could I fucking do?” he said. “And halfway through, the landlord yells from the hall that I need to tell you guys to stop smoking pot in the bathroom.”

“So how many boxes did you buy?” I asked.

“I forget. Over $700 worth.”

As far as we were concerned, that was the funniest thing that had ever happened. We didn’t stop laughing about it for the rest of the day, only stopping long enough to go into the bathroom to smoke more pot.

When the cookies arrived, my boss had to go pick them up. I’m sure the Girl Scouts of America has a prominently displayed map with our old office building circled and crossed out in bright red ink for all to see. They weren’t about to send Girl Scouts over there without a heavily armed military escort.

We had boxes of Girl Scout cookies sitting in the lobby forever, which says a lot considering our penchant for getting the munchies. If a newcomer to the office would ask about them, my boss always had the same answer. “You want some? Go ahead. Take them home. I fucking hate Girl Scout cookies.”