Last Call: Girl Scout Cookies Are Concentrated Nostalgia For $5 A Pop

First, the important information: Jennifer Garner is shipping Girl Scout cookies to those who don't have the good fortune to encounter them outside of their local grocery store, bank, or weed dispensary. She posted about it to Instagram this week:

Garner encourages those interested in her cookie surplus to tell her why they're in need of her stash, adding that "A good story has been known to shake a couple of boxes off the Thin Mint tree."

I'm lucky enough to live in a city positively paved with Girl Scout cookies, but surely we all have some good stories regardless.

My sister and I were both Girl Scouts, and the best memories I have from my time as a Brownie Scout are those years when my mom volunteered to be the "cookie parent." This means that instead of all the scout parents zipping to and from the far-flung cookie distribution facility, they'd simply hit up your more centrally located house whenever they needed a restock. Imagine a dining room, living room, and TV area piled high with boxes of Tagalongs, Thin Mints, and Samoas. But more importantly, imagine the quietly powerful social status afforded to the kid watching Nick at Nite amidst this bounty, waiting to greet the kids from school who rang the doorbell to receive what only she could offer them. When it came to being the cookie family, I did none of the work and reaped 1,000% of the benefits.

Since Girl Scout cookies only exist within "season," the memories I have of the cookies themselves feel more vivid and urgent than my associations with other treats from childhood. Maybe it's also because, as a scout, they felt a bit like bringing work home with you. Each Do-Si-Do I ate was lifted from a box that I could have technically sold to someone else—one more sale on my way to the coveted "100+" badge sewn onto the vests of more enterprising scouts. And I remember the defensiveness I felt when I stared down the unsold boxes of Lemon Pastry Cremes at the end of a whirlwind sales season: It's not my fault they're disgusting! I can't be expected to move inventory like this!

Do you have any Girl Scout cookie memories that make for a good story? Share them below, and your fellow commenters can determine whether they're Thin Mint–worthy.