Great Cookie Caper
Claims A Victim
That's where I'm bunking these days, at least around the old neighborhood up in Houston.
I walk down my old street, the street where I grew up, the street on which I used to ride figure-eights on my bicycle, the street where I used to stand of many a chill, rainy morn waiting for the school bus -- the street where my parents still live -- and I feel as if I should be ringing a bell, crying, ''Unclean! Unclean! Shun me! Unclean!''
Neighbors chatting over their garden fences fall silent, stare and whisper as I pass. Doors slam. Windows close. Dogs chase after me, growling and snarling. Little kids ride by on their bicycles and stick their tongues out at me.
And all over a few boxes of cookies.
It began that fateful Tuesday afternoon when I stretched out on the sofa for a couple hours of power napping.
I was all alone in the house, so naturally that's when the doorbell rang.
And it rang just when I was about as soundly asleep as you can get -- so, of course, it exploded like the Doomsday Bell through about seven layers of unconsciousness.
After reassuring myself that I hadn't blown out an artery, I shuffled toward the door, calling every unspeakable torment of hellfire and damnation down on whatever religious nut or itinerant handyman or policeman's-ball-ticket-hustler would dare jolt me out of a sound slumber.
What I found was a generic Cute Little Girl, about seven, auburn pigtails, missing her two front teeth, smiling shyly, and mumbling, ''would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?''
Admirably, on my part (or so I thought), I quickly put on hold the fiery blast I had been rehearsing, and said, ''Not today, thank you.'' Nicely, mind you. With a cheery smile and just the slightest hint of feigned regret at having to pass up the offer.
I closed the door. That was that, right?
Not hardly. Five minutes later, the rest of the family walked in. I casually mentioned the encounter -- and my mother turned a frightening shade of ashy grey and immediately rushed for the telephone.
See, she had to call the neighbor lady across the street -- whose little girl Carylann, it turned out, had been the cookie seller that I didn't recognize because I didn't ever see that much of her and I had been half-asleep anyway -- she had to call Carylann's mother and try to straighten out the mess I had gotten us into.
Apparently, we were SUPPOSED to buy a bunch of cookies from the little tyke. It had all been pre-arranged. In fact, Mama Carylann had worked it all out in advance with the whole neighborhood, because when little Carylann came back to take the order, my mother's was already 33rd on her list.
Man, oh, man, I thought, live and learn.
This army of little girls -- who, I had always assumed, were out there learning the Tricks Of The Trade, learning how to be persistent and Turn A No Into A Yes through a convincing display of Confidence In The Product, and learning how to Graciously Accept Rejection -- these little girls aren't so much learning life lessons as they are collecting on favors already exacted from neighbors afraid of being branded un-neighborly, afraid of what might be whispered in the produce aisles and between the hair dryers, if they don't go along with the program.
Sort of a -- well, sort of a pint-sized protection racket, I guess, huh? I get it, now: ''Be a dear and buy a couple boxes of little Boopsie's Thin Mints and we won't notice those dark roots, love.''
Alas, for me, the realization comes too late. I can't show my face around home again. I'm no longer the Rizleys' eldest son, the Galveston writer, I'm the creep who slammed the door on Sweet Little Carylann.
Hm. I wonder how many boxes of S'Mores it'll take to get me out of THIS one?
