Mondays. OMG, shoot me now. First, there’s the whole Monday thing. I mean, it’s not Monday’s fault that it’s the day you have to go back to work, but that doesn’t make it any better.

Now really it wouldn’t matter what day of the week today fell on. Whatever day I have Boy Scouts is going to be crazy. Depending on the week, I get home either 20 minutes before I have to leave for Scouts, or 10 minutes after it starts. Awesome planning, I know.

Then, I’m in Scouts supposedly until 8, but let’s be real. If I’m home by 8:45 it’s a good night. At which point I have to write the blog. Except tonight I’m not paying attention to Scouts because I have to do work on my resume and cover letters. And pay bills because somehow I got behind on my things to do last night.

Now, I tried to work on the cover letters on the way to work (vanpool people, I’m not driving), but I couldn’t focus this morning. Monday, remember? And oddly, half of the text in the job description was cut off, so I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Then I was going to do it on the way home, but vertigo stopped that completely. Imagine having vertigo while you’re on a Disney teacup and you’ve got my ride home.

OK, I’m done whining, but I have no real subject for today’s blog beyond Mondays should be illegal.

If anyone wants to help me make my resume stellar and write some cover letters, I’m accepting that help tonight. Which is just sad for a writer, but I don’t like to talk about myself. Which makes sounding fantastic on paper really hard.

Almost has painful as Linux. Or not. But not what I want to do after a long day at work and with the room spinning…

We have survived the first cookie sale. Amazingly enough, I didn’t scream at anyone. This is amazing for so many reasons, the prime one being that I woke up at 4:15 and couldn’t go back to bed. And I was determined I would go back to sleep, so I didn’t get out of bed and accomplish a ton of stuff. So, 8 hours of selling cookies in the rain today was a recipe for me losing my temper.

There was a moment there where I thought the rest of the troop was going to throttle the one Scout who wanted to get additional cases of cookies for our next sale in two weeks. Luckily, we did this crazy thing called taking a vote and she was overruled. Which means, with the extra boxes of cookies we’ll get when we get our pre-orders next week, we have about 75 boxes of cookies we still have to sell.

Seventy-five boxes to freedom.

I have to say, we had a really good time out there today. Apparently some of the girls had forgotten what it was like to sell cookies with me. For those of you who have read Jenny Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation, the five steps to running a con work. Really. Well. I’d say I should send her a box of cookies, but since she just found out she’s diabetic and is making real changes to her diet, I won’t. Also, I don’t know her address beyond somewhere in the wilds of Ohio. But God knows, she deserves them.

I’m not above using guilt, sarcasm, sweetness and light, or begging to sell cookies. You’re wearing a Carolina Tarheels hat? “You know what you’re going to want at 4:00 when you take on Maryland? Thin Mints.”

Guys walking out with Bud Lite. “You know, Thanks a Lots are really good with beer.” Well, they are. Then, looking at the girls, “This is not knowledge you should have.”

Baby teething? No problem. You need Shortbreads. Carmel deLites (do not let the name fool you, they are not lite) go well with a spicy Cabernet. And they’re all good on SuperBowl weekend because they’re snack foods and everyone knows snack foods are calorie-free on big game weekend!

I had customers walking into Radio Shack giving the guy in there grief because he only bought one box. Heck, I was trying to work an agreement where I did the receiving of the 10 boxes of inventory in exchange for him buying 10 boxes of cookies.

I sold a box of cookies to some guy because “you know what goes great with ice?” Radio Shack kept coming out to watch me work. My personal best today? 8 boxes. The girls just cracked up. Apparently their last troop stood around quietly asking people if they’d like to buy some cookies. I’m a little more in your face. And even if you don’t buy them, you’ll walk buy laughing.

Toward the end, we couldn’t feel our toes or fingers. Things got a little desperate then. Imagine a woman and three girls looking pitiful, saying, “Please buy a box of cookies so we can go home and get warm.”

We gave up with 45 minutes to go. I came home and walked into a bubble bath. Then I fell into a glass or two of questionable wine and I reasonably good omelet.

As you face the girls in the coming weeks, please remember that $4 a box gives your local troop $.56. The rest goes to things like providing Scouts and camp to girls around the country. It provides opportunities many girls would never otherwise have.

Oh, and if you’re diabetic, I sympathize, and you don’t have to buy a box for yourself. But don’t be surprised if some enterprising young thing suggests you buy a box to send to our military troops. I’ve trained the girls well.

Tomorrow is the big day. The first of two Girl Scout Cookies sales. It’s supposed to be 55 and rainy. I can’t wait. Back when the girls said they wanted to do sales, I said, “I will give up two weekends of my life for this. That’s it. Be prepared: the weather will suck.”

Personally, while I would love for the 70 degree weather to have stuck it out for two more days (would it have been so hard?), I’m just thankful it’s not supposed to snow.

So for 8 hours tomorrow, Snarky Daughter and I will be hocking cookies. I’ll be the one in the “Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies” t-shirt. I will also be the cranky one teaching everyone how to count back change because, yes, this is a skill you should have learned while playing Monopoly, and yes, you will use it later in life. Usually to get the correct change out of the kid at McDonalds who can’t figure out how much money to give you because he mis-keyed the amount you paid him.

I digress.

Eight hours, you say? But why? There are good reasons for this. I do believe in supporting the organization, and our troop does get 50-some cents per box of cookies sold which will help pay for activities for the troop for the rest of the year. Those are the noble reasons, and even one of those is questionable.

But the reason I got behind the sales is that if Snarky Daughter sells 500 boxes of cookies, she’s in a drawing for a $2,000 college scholarship. Last year, 16 girls in her age group sold over 500 boxes. There are four scholarships, so each of those girls had a 1 in 4 chance of willing a scholarship.

Two words: law school.

I have no way of paying for college, let alone law school. Ahem, remember that plan we talked about where you all bought 1 million copies of The Heiress and Her Fake Fiancé for 99 cents? I’ve kept up my end of the bargain; I wrote it and made it available on Amazon. Work with me, people!

Anyway, Snarky Daughter did reasonably well selling cookies leading up to the sales, and there is a slim possibility that if she sells really well this weekend, and everyone I know buys several boxes of cookies for the troops, that she could actually make the goal. Unlikely, since she’s not the only girl in the troop selling this weekend, but still, a possibility.

So, looking forward to 8 hours in the rain, outside a grocery store, with lots of coffee and limited bathroom breaks. Unless, of course, you’d all like to buy a box of Thin Mints to eat while you read your recently downloaded copy of The Heiress and Her Fake Fiancé.

Just sayin.