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January 12, 2009

It's Girl Scout Cookie Time!



From the GS website (with a hat tip to Don't Mess With Taxes)

Q: Is the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies tax-deductible?
A: No and Yes.

* No, if the customer keeps the cookies. Individuals who buy Girl Scout Cookies and take the cookies home, or consume them, have purchased a product at a fair market value. For this reason, no part of the price of a box of Girl Scout Cookies used in this way is tax-deductible.

* Yes, if the customer leaves the cookies with Girl Scouts. Many Girl Scouts ask customers to pay for one or more boxes of cookies for use in their community service project, for example, collecting for a food pantry. The customers not receiving any Girl Scout Cookies do not benefit directly from paying for them. Those individuals may treat the purchase price of the donated cookies as a charitable contribution.

So, for example, if you wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies for members of our armed forces overseas, you could claim those cookies as a charitable donation.



Lemme tell ya something; I got a Thin Mint addiction, like big-time, man. I'm jonesin' right now just thinkin' 'bout 'em. I need a Thin Mint fix.

I bought several boxes last year, intending to share them with my family as well as with some online friends in other countries.

They didn't make it...and I almost didn't either, what with the one long, continuous sugar coma I was in.

Thin Mints aren't my favorite cookie; that would have to be a fresh-baked chocolate chip. I could probably live with only having but a store-bought Oreo® for the rest of my life, but Thin Mints are RARE.

Once a year and only once they come in the lovely green GS boxes with pictures of cute smiling Girl Scouts on them, delivered by cute and smiling Girl Scouts, but what's best is when you open the box: Two foil covered sleeves of Thin Mints.

I always try to eat no more than half a sleeve at a time, I really do. My problem is I only allot five minutes in between the portions.

They're not really a dipping cookie as the chocolate covering is too hard to let milk soak through, but hot liquids, such as tea or coffee will melt the shell a bit and penetrate the cookie. It takes several cookies, thank goodness, to finally gauge just how long to let them soak. Too long and the cookie will break off right at the "waterline" and settle down to the bottom of the cup.

That's OK, though, because the cookie is so delicious, it flavors the coffee/tea and after drinking the liquid, there's a lovely gooey mass to consume at the end.

I've learned to be careful because a few years ago I was trying to coax the sodden cookie crumbs into my mouth, tapping on the side of the cup with my free hand - because it's easy to knock out a tooth if you use your lips to bang the cup against - when all of a sudden I had an mini-avalanche of Thin Mint dregs in my mouth and half-way down my throat.

Surprised, I did the reflexive thing and gasped...way wrong thing to do. It didn't take long for me to cough out the obstruction, but it seemed like an hour or two while I tried to get a breath and all the while I was thinking of the headlines and if it would hurt GS cookie sales.

2 comments:

Barb said...

Colleen's first year selling cookies. She's in a Brownie troop here and loves it.

Mike said...

Wish I was there to buy some from her! My neighbor's granddaughter sells them and cleans up just from neighbors.

Dunno why your post didn't go through; I've never moderated comments and when I went in to edit a future post, I saw there was a pending comment.

I'd rather wade through a dozen nasty comments than have my friends be censored.