Brownies, like the girls dressed in brown, not the yummy dessert

"Do a good turn daily" That is the Brownie Girl Scout's motto. Once a week a wore a brown skort, blue button up shirt, brown sash, and cream colored neck tie to school so that I could attend my Brownie meeting after school. This is probably the ugliest outfit ever. I loved it. I felt sooo cool on the days that I got to wear it to school. All my best friends were in my troop and at first we had a lot of fun. then my troop leader decided to have a baby and quit. Cool. So we all joined a new troop together. This leader was not so good. My favorite part of Brownies was the day once a year when each troop in the area would set up a display at the convention center and represent a different country. I remember being Mexico one year. We made a Mexican flag, cooked Mexican food and learned some Spanish for our display. Then, you got to walk around the convention center and see all the other troops and their countries. It felt like I was traveling the world. However, the year that I joined the new troop we got all of our food and posters together and drove to the convention center. Guess who forgot to show up. My troop leader. We were not allowed to set up our table without her there and she never came. I was devastated. This was when my disdain for Girl Scouts began to take root.

My best friends and I got into our biggest fight that I can remember at our Brownie meeting one day. We were always arguing about something, but this particular fight has always stuck with me. Corie, Sally, and I were sitting at the same table and of course our leader hadn't shown up yet. So while we were waiting I must have said something and Sally called me stupid. I immediately decided to retaliate by calling her a brat. Corie took my side. We were all crying and stayed mad at each other for a few days. Yes, it was a big deal.

One good thing about my troop was that my leader was too lazy to take us camping. All the other troops in my area would go camping, honestly I was not jealous. My brother was in Boy Scouts and I would hear stories of sleeping in the rain and eating nasty camping food. That did not seem like the activity for me. However, my parents thought I should give it a try. So they talked to a troop leader that went to our church and asked if I could spend the weekend camping with her troop. I found myself on a cot in a damp sleeping bag hoping creatures didn't eat me in the middle of the night. Also, I did not know any of the girls in this troop so I was kind of the weird intruder to them. Throughout the course of the weekend I had two near death experiences. At lunch on Saturday I choked on my hot dog but I could not remember the sign for choking(I feel like I should have learned that basic thing in Girl Scouts...) I just sat there thinking I was going to die until I finally got my hot dog to dislodge from my throat. Later we were night hiking with glow necklaces. I put my necklace in my mouth and it got caught on one of my braces wires. The necklace busted open and all the glowing juice got into my mouth. I was not sure if it was non toxic but during the course of the hike I convinced myself that it was poisonous. I was too shy to tell anyone about my situation though. It turns out that the magical glowing juice is non-toxic and I did not die. It was still a terrible weekend.

I had had it with Girl Scouts. I bridged over to Juniors and quit before I got any patches on that teal vest. It was one of the best decisions of my life.