just give me the damn cookies

“Um, excuse me,” a meek voice said as I walked out of Longs.

“Yes?” I said, looking around for the person who had spoken. I finally looked down, and saw a tiny redheaded cherub in a Girl Scout uniform.

“Um, wady, would you wike to buy a box of cookies? Girl Scout cookies?”

Oh my god. Oh for cute. She was absolutely petrified, and her chubby knees shook as she fearfully gazed up at me from behind a screen of ginger fringe.

“Sure!” I said, fumbling in my purse. “Can I get a box of Samoas?” (For my coworkers, y’understand.)

Her brow furrowed. “Um, what?”

“Samoas?”

“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” she bellowed. A harried-looking woman scurried over and I blinked at her in confusion.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“Um, this wady, she um wants something we don’t got.”

“Don’t have,” the woman automatically said. Then she turned to me and said, “What were you looking for?”

“Samoas.”

“Oh, they’re not called that anymore. There were some…issues. They’re called Caramel Delites now.”

Issues?

ISSUES?!

What, did the good people of Samoa rise up and demand that the cookie be renamed? Why? I can’t imagine they thought it was some kind of slur. We’re talking about the most delicious cookie of them all...drizzled in caramel and dusted in flakes of perfectly browned coconut. What’s so offensive about that? If someone wants to name a delectable snackfood after me, they are more than welcome to do so. Some possible suggestions:

*C’s Sardonic Shortbread Surprises
*Four-Eyed White Girl De-lites
*Neurotic Nuggets
*Whitey McWhiterson's Wafers
*Buy These Cookies…Or Don’t, I Don’t Care. But Please Do Because I Need the Affirmation
*Do My Cookies Look Big in This Wrapper?
*Praline Paranoias
*Honkies!

---

EDIT: Mere minutes after posting this, I was discussing the whole debacle with a coworker, who had some inside ‘fo. Apparently, there are two major companies that produce Girl Scout cookies, and only one of them has the right to the Samoas name; the other company calls them Caramel Delites. Eff that noise, they’ll always be Samoas to me!