My Annual Downward Sprial…The Cookie Crash

I know I haven’t updated you since Christmas and for that I apologize.  You see, after the holidays I was immediately swamped by the travel schedule from hell.  I basically was only home on weekends for the entire month of January and part of February.  That was immediately followed by Girl Scout Cookie season.

Girl Scout Cookie season always starts with elation.  The first taste each year of my cookie order makes me insanely happy.  And then as I eat through the boxes, I experience a growing panic that I’M RUNNING OUT OF COOKIES!  Then comes the phase I call the “crack whore” phase of Cookie Season.  You know it when you see it.  I’m out at 9am on a Saturday morning unshowered and disheveled looking for a Home Depot or a Walmart with a cookie stand in front of it.  And there wait those cute, short, perky little cookie pushers smiling huge smiles as I pull wads of cash out of my sports bra sweatpants pocket and beg for Thin Mints and Samoas (or Caramel Delights as I hear they’re called in some parts of the country).  And I walk (a little ashamed) back to my car as I hear whatever mother is herding the cookie pushers say quietly “That’s what a hangover looks like,” in a word of warning to her little crack dealers not to become me.

No, little Girl Scouts…do not become the single, 30-something lady that drinks a bottle of red wine at home on a Friday night and then has to go out in search of a Thin Mint hit first thing in the morning on Saturday.  And that’s not even the worst of the crack whore stage.

The worst is when the cookie sales tables start drying up.  You might drive through 8 zip codes looking for the elusive crack pusher cookie kid.  And when you finally see a stand, you are so excited you can barely park your car and you get out shaking with anticipation and try to refrain from running as you approach and you say, “Thin Mints?” trying to sound casual and that’s when you hear the dreaded, “Oh, we’re all out of Thin Mints, but we have Trefoils!”  And you look up and see the condescending look in that Cookie Pusher Mom’s eye as she waves that box of shortbread in your face.  You try to keep your voice from cracking as you say, “Do you know of any stand that has Thin Mints left?” and she laughs.  “Oh no, we always run out of Thin Mints first.”  And I bite my tongue instead of screaming what I’m really thinking which is “THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T ORDER ENOUGH THIN MINTS!!!”

I try to act calm as I suggest Samoas instead.  And with each shake of her head I start running through the options from my favorites down to the dreaded Trefoil.  I hate the Trefoil.  A Trefoil is a sad excuse of a cookie when there are options like Thin Mints or Samoas that are so delicious.  As I start to back away cookie-less, those little crack dealing cutie pies give me those giant puppy dog eyes, “Aren’t you going to buy a box?  Please?  We’re almost sold out and we can go home as soon as we sell out.”  Oh, clever marketing cookie pusher mom.  And so in a fit of guilt and sugar imbalance I purchase a box of whatever.  And I realize that this is rock bottom for me.  I’ve done it again.  I’ve eaten all the available Thin Mints and Samoas and now I’m forced into detox.  It’s over…again.

I’ll go home, pour a glass of wine milk and eat whatever second-rate cookie they made me buy.  I’ll eat the entire box at once so I don’t have to look at it and re-live the humiliation again.  And as I lay there with my blood sugar high enough to justify an insulin pump, I accept what I’ve become.  I know I have to get clean.  I need to at least take a shower before the sugar crash.

The next few days will be full of constant reminders of how my beloved cookies are gone.  I might even catch myself checking eBay for cases of Thin Mints but I remind myself that it’ll just start the vicious cycle over again.  And so as my body adjusts to life without daily blood sugar spikes, everything seems just a little duller…a little sadder.  Pinterest isn’t as interesting.  Facebook posts all seem to be about pollen and sneezing.  Everyone on twitter seems to be sober.  I remind myself, it just takes time.  Getting clean takes time.

And there’s always next year.