FUNNY:Monster cookie monster

The Girl Scouts were selling cookies outside a store the other day and I got three boxes of the Thin Mints. Now that's restraint.

I have considerable cookie experience, as befits a man of my years. You have little to teach me about butter cookies, chocolate chip, the Pepperidge Farm varieties, vanilla wafers, peanut butter cookies, ginger snaps, Oreos, sugar cookies, macaroons or Lorna Doones. But even as a boy I knew that Thin Mints were not just the best Girl Scout cookies — they were the best cookies anywhere.

For one thing, they were harder to get than any other cookie. You couldn't get them at the store. You couldn't even get them when the Girl Scouts first came around selling them. Your mother had to order them, and they arrived about 10 years later. But when they arrived, they were worth the wait.

There were several kinds of Girl Scout cookies, with names like Samoas, Trefoils and Tagalongs, and they weren't bad. But they weren't Thin Mints.

One of the advantages of growing up was that years later, having moved to Laguna's Top of the World neighborhood, I found myself in a prime Thin Mint cookie belt.

By this time I was weight conscious, if not weight savvy, and one year I read on a Girl Scout cookie box that four Thin Mints only accounted for 11% of my total recommended daily fat. According to my reasoning, if I may stretch the definition of that word, this meant that I could eat 36 Thin Mints a day without gaining weight. I bought accordingly.

Sadly, I had left out of my calculations the likelihood that I would eat other things during the day.

Consequently, I did gain weight — enough so that when I saw a photo of myself standing in the driveway, I was reminded of my grandmother's brother, the man we used to call Uncle Bus.

The day of the 12-box order was past. In fact, I cut myself off for a few years, and finally stabilized at three to five boxes annually.

Sometimes the urge to stock up still wells up within, and when it does I realize how wise the Girl Scout organization is to limit our access to the Thin Mints.

Patti Jo Googled "Girl Scout cookies" the other day and came away with some interesting information: "You can't buy 'em online, know why?"

"Why?"

"Builds character."

She didn't say whether it built the Girl Scouts' character or mine, but it's probably good for all of us.