I am sure that there are many homes that would be beaming with pride at that last sentence. This is not one of those places. Any person who knows me knows that I am not a fan of the program. I have had religious folks, regular folks and perhaps a few sinning folks try to change my tune. But alas my opinion still sticks. The whole thing is a complex issue that may or may not involve a small amount of feminist vigilantism. But before you begin to assume that my Subaru, faux hawk sporting, recycling ways have clouded my vision I have to remind you of one thing. Boys scouts is expensive and I don'e even get cookies out of the deal.
Here is my expensive tale-
Since becoming a boy scout mom I have learned a few new phrases. One of them being Pack night. I am still not sure what this means. I have only attended two of them and I have to admit that the first one I almost ran out of the gym for fear that we were actually paying homage to a dictator. Fun fact chanting straight up freaks me out. Another fun fact there is a lot of chanting at pack nights. Because of the way that Thing 2's birthday lands his first brush with scouts was to be a pack night. Even though I was terrified at my first pack night I did manage to notice that all the scouts had on uniforms so I knew I needed to let the boy wonder suit up so I took him to the store.
Given that you can only buy your scouting needs in one place they have decided that customer service is not really necessary so I wandered around for at least 20 years trying to find the right area to get a shirt and when I did stumble upon them I waited another 29 years trying to find someone to explain to my why there were 12 smalls but no other size. Since no explanation was coming I decided to just do my best. I figured while we were there we would up grade shirts since Thing 1's shirt is less blue and more dirty violet. Apparently there is a magic sensor that I set off that indicated that their was a sucker on the hook and the once useless staff suddenly appeared to offer up an upgraded shirt in a completely different color for thing 1 for a mere 45 dollars. Knowing exactly zilch about anything scouting related I figured that brown was the new blue and went with it. Of course that was not all. We also needed the upgraded neckerchief, slide, numbers, patches and belts. And lets not forget the book and the hat and the socks. When I declined the book with the support of some stranger at the counter all hell broke loose. I was questioned about which affiliation I was with, who told me not to buy the book, if I believed in aliens or in Jesus and so on and so forth. Seeing my great discomfort the good Samaritan tried to come to my aid. She began to spew words that I can only assume where scout based, round table or national or bloopity bloppity. This infuriated the guy who was trying to take me for all I was worth. He countered with more scouty jargon which in turn generated more jargon from aforementioned good Samaritan. The longer the dispute went on the more uncomfortable I got. I hate confrontations but this concern was more routed in public safety. The scouting store attendant had clearly not seen the likes of nature in years as his figure attested and all the rage of being questioned was making his blood pressure rise. I was worried that he was going to have a full fledged heart episode and I know even less about CPR then I do about scouting and Lord knows while there were manuals to help me through this situation littered about me opening would yield in fees and required manual buying and aint nobody got time for that.
I was trapped and was trying to convince myself that I really didn't need any of this stuff after all and slowly tried to back my way out of the store since you know poking bears only leads to trouble. This story has a happy ending though. When he saw that the golden goose was about to vacate his premise he paused the fight long enough to ring me up and proclaim my total of 89 dollars. I handed over the cash-o-la and left the store.
In the after math this is what I discovered
1- I didn't buy a shirt for Thing 2
2- I didn't get the numbers for Thing 2's shirt
3-Brown is not the new blue but it is in fact the color that the leaders buy
So needless to say I still have to go back where they will bilk me for another 80 bucks- I have done the math that is 20 boxes of girl scouts cookies which according to my math gives me justification for my hatred for the program.
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