Cookie Parents

By Amie Ryan

I may be the only person on earth who gets angry at the sight of little girl scouts with their parents at the entrances and exits of grocery stores.1. scout： 童子军；grocery store： 杂货店。

I know you’ve seen this before. There will be a fold out table full of the item being sold with a mother or father energetically pitching the item to shoppers.2. fold out table： 可折叠的桌子；pitch： 推销。If you ask the child a question about the cookies or candy bars,the child will look confused and will frantically3. frantically： 发狂地，热切地。get the parent’s attention so she can answer the question for you. Then the child, usually in uniform,can relax and go back to sitting quietly like the prop4. prop： 道具。she has become.

This sight makes me angry because it’s cheating, and I ought to know,having once been a girl scout cookie peddler5. peddler： 小贩。myself. Not only is it cheating the system, it’s cheating the kid.

Think about it. All through their childhoods kids are told not to talk to strangers when, in fact, as adults this is a skill they’ll use pretty much every day. Selling these cookies door to door is their one chance to practice. In fact, they’ll probably get to practice a lot of other skills too:calling grownups Sir or Ma’am, being polite even when the other person is being rude, telling someone Thank You Anyway even when they tell you No. And hearing the word No over and over and continuing to try.

In my neighborhood it was just assumed that anyone with a school-age child would at some point push them into the Door to Door ranks.6. 在我住的地方，街坊邻里们认为家长就该在某个时候，让到了学龄的小孩去进行挨家挨户的推销活动。rank： 队列，行列。The unspoken rule was that you were obligated to7. be obligated to： 有义务做某事。buy your neighbor kid’s item so that they would buy from your kid when the time came. Once we’d exhausted8. exhaust： 用完，耗尽，此处指“让我们的街坊四邻全都买了饼干”。our neighborhood, we took it on the road. My mom would drive me into other neighborhoods and she’d stop the car in front of each house and watch to be sure I didn’t get kidnapped as I hauled two very heavy cookie filled cartons up the walkway to each door.9. kidnap： 绑架，诱拐；haul：拖，拽； carton： 纸箱；walkway： 走道。

But hear me: she stayed in the car. She wasn’t the one trying to earn a badge10. badge： 徽章。, that was my goal and that’s why she made me do the work.If I’d asked her to sell my cookies for me she would have laughed her head off11. laugh one’s head off： 笑掉大牙。and then told me not to be lazy.

So I went to each door and heard numerous variations of No. Most people said they already had enough cookies. I was seven, wearing a Brownie beanie and with my hair in two long braids.12. Brownie： 美国幼年（七八岁）女童子军； beanie： 无檐小便帽；braid： 辫子。Hey, if you ask me, I was adorable, but apparently I wasn’t gifted at selling.13. adorable： 很可爱的；gifted：有天赋的。

My sister noticed that I kept returning home with the same amount of cookies I’d left with and she decided I needed to change my sales pitch14. sales pitch： 推销商品的言辞。. This was a rare occasion, having my big sister pay attention to me, so I listened carefully and then, the next day when my mom took me cookie selling, I did exactly what my big sister had said.

A bored looking woman answered the door and I said “Hi, my mom says I need to sell all these cookies (sniffle) and that I can’t come home (sniffle) until I sell them ALL (full sobbing here)!”15. sniffle： 抽噎；sob： 啜泣。

The woman bought a lot of cookies. So did the next house and the next and I learned another good skill which was Acting.

在美国，你经常会看到“卖饼干的小女孩”，在街道上、超市或影院门口都能看到她们的身影。她们都来自于一支神奇的队伍，叫做女童子军。这个组织创立于1912年，旨在培养女孩品德，树立女孩信心。而卖饼干则是美国女童子军一项非常重要的传统活动，它不仅解决了组织的活动经费，还能提升小孩的沟通能力，让小孩树立正确的金钱观念，好处不一而足。但让作者义愤填膺的是，有一些家长在小孩卖饼干的过程中帮起了倒忙……

My mom was confused why I was suddenly so successful and I told her the new way my sister had told me to sell the cookies. She laughed for a long time. Then she told me it was okay but not to tell the troop16. troop： 军队，此处指童子军。leader the trick.

“Because SHE’S not the one who has to carry those heavy cartons, right?” my mom asked.

“Right!” I agreed.

So yes, there was a bit of lying involved, but at least I was the one doing the lying. I think my mom agreed because if I hadn’t been able to sell the cookies, she would have been stuck17. be stuck： 被难住，被困住。buying them all. In this way,the dishonesty worked out for everyone. And once I successfully sold cookies I then had to handle money and make accurate change, more skills the kids don’t get when their parents do the selling for them.18. 我将饼干成功地卖出去后，接着就是要收钱并准确找钱。父母帮忙卖的话，小孩就学不到这么多技能。make change： 找零。

And of course when I was younger the Door to Door bit didn’t end with the cookies.19. 当然，挨家挨户推销的习惯在我年轻的时候可不仅仅只是卖饼干。bit： 惯例。All the kids were regulars on the sales circuit.20. 所有的小孩都是来来回回地销售。regular： 常客；circuit：（剧团、推销员等的）巡回地区（或路线）。Candy bars, Christmas decorations,magazine subscriptions21. subscription： 订阅。. We got to know our neighbors well.

Some of my friends now take the Selling For Their Child bit one step further: the parent sells the item to friends and coworkers, taking orders, collecting the money and delivering the goods all without the child even being aware a sale has taken place.

So you parents, the ones who seem to be trying to earn Good Parent badges as you stand behind that table at the grocery store: you aren’t fooling anyone. And by the way,you’re 50 feet away from an entire aisle filled with lower priced cookies, many of them Pepperidge Farm.22. 顺便提一句，十几米以外有整整一排都摆满了更便宜的饼干，很多都是非凡农庄的。feet： 英尺，1英尺=0.3048米；Pepperidge Farm： 非凡农庄，美国著名饼干品牌。

You can’t outsell Pepperidge Farm and no way can you outcookie them.23. 你不可能比非凡农庄卖得好，你卖的饼干也不比那些便宜的饼干好吃。outsell： 卖得更多。