Jenyfer Matthews

You know you are getting up there in age when many of your stories include phrases like when I was a child or I remember when. Since it seems like a lot of my stories start that way recently so you can draw your own conclusions!

Though I was never a girl scout myself, I have a long history with girl scout cookies. A friend of mine down the street who was a little younger than me was a girl scout and I used to help her sell them. It was kind of a treat for me because my school was always asking us to sell hard things like magazine subscriptions. Girl scout cookies were a breeze – they practically sell themselves!

But it was difficult for even a young child to resist the allure of all those cookies. I used to buy boxes of thin mints with my allowance and stash them in my bedroom. No worries of attracting insects because they never lasted very long! The serving size in the nutritional information really should just say “2″ – I can easily eat an entire tube at one sitting and I’d like to think that everyone else is doing exactly the same thing. I’d like to know what they put in Thin Mints because I can resist all other varieties of Girl Scout cookies but those. The only way for me to resist them is not to buy them at all.

(And incidentally – that Thin Mint Blizzard that Dairy Queen was hyping last summer was a big disappointment. It was Oreos and mint sauce in ice cream. Not a bad Blizzard but NOT Thin Mints)

I’ll be making a quick trip back to the US soon and a friend asked me would I like any girl scout cookies. Does anyone ever say no to girl scout cookies?? Even the cat in the picture is even sitting on a box of my favorite variety! I think my only hope is to avoid eye contact if I see any Girl Scouts or I may have to pay for excess baggage on the return flight!

If you are here reading this, you are in a select group of people – I don’t tell just everyone that I write romance novels. There are a variety of reasons for this. Some people look down on romance novels and I just don’t care enough to argue with them about the fact that most romance novels I have read are much more interesting than all the pseudo-literature that is out there. But more importantly, I don’t want to deal with people looking at me and wondering if my writing is autobiographical – if that love scene I wrote is real or memorex. I’ll tell you though that I *mostly* just have a vivid imagination

Since this is confession hour, I’ll also tell you one more secret. I’m addicted to Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. It started as a child. I was never a Girl Scout myself (thank goodness) but my friend down the street was. I used to walk around the neighborhood with her, both taking orders and then helping her deliver them all when they came in. I’m sure she must have won multiple badges or whatever the incentive is – I remember her mother being a bit annoyed because we covered a lot of ground on foot and it was pretty inconvenient when it came time to deliver them!!

It was during that time that I first fell in love with Thin Mints. I would buy several boxes from my friend and then squirrel them away in my room. Try as I might to ration them, I would nearly always succumb to their evil power and consume an entire tube at a time (we’ll talk about my childhood weight issues another time). I finally decided that it was better not to partake of them at all because I have absolutely no will power when it comes to those cookies. I have lived abroad for the last several years so I have been able to avoid temptation but this year they found me again – in Germany of all places!

It’s been a while since I have had any so I decided to get ONE box, just to see if their allure was still so strong. I had it in my possession for several days before I opened it. They are just as good as they ever were. I opened them while my own children were at school and then hid the box in my nightstand. No way am I sharing them!!

I have so far managed to only eat a few at a time, but it’s been hard. The only way to avoid gorging myself is either to leave the house or to brush my teeth. What is in those things anyway???

My favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip. I think I see a pattern here…

Jenyfer