Skip to main content

I picked a fight with the Girls Scouts over their fat cookies


Yes, it's true, I was a Brownie a long time ago, and learned how to toast marshmellows and make rag-rugs, and I sold cookies then too.

But people weren't so - ummm - deliciously smitten with cookies and cakes and candies and pizza and hamburgers and tamales and barbacoa. We weren't so gorditas and gorditos then, ok?

San Antonio, Texas, has a reputation for great Tex-Mex food. But if you live here, it's hard to be slender. And the only slender thing about San Antonio is the river. We are one of the poorest cities in the country, deliberately so, making my community vulnerable to commercials and the flour-tortilla temptations of our working-class history. In my part of the city, there should be a law against all the fast-food joints on one block. Cheap, fast, filling food that working and middle-class people eat all the time. Have to eat, or else they'll starve.

This is why I picked a fight with the Girls Scouts selling their make-me-fat cookies outside the stores this weekend. It seems like ninety percent of the people here are overweight, many are very obese. When my out-of-town friends come to visit me, this is the first thing they notice... How dare the Girls Scouts take advantage of us this way?

But of course, they can. Everybody else does. We don't have a good mass transit system, and the middle-class won't take the buses, that's what poor people use in Texas. So hardly anyone walks. It's just too easy to gain weight in San Antonio, we have a generous table of friendship and food, it's all offered in love. Only the food we're eating right now is all wrong for us. Being gordita or gordita is normal for this city. I'm not kidding.

Our diabetes rate is skyrocketing-high, and it's like those who don't have the sugar have high blood pressure or borderline or are having heart attacks. We are a breathtakingly beautiful people, if you could only see us as I knew us when I was growing up. When we were skinny.

I told the Girls Scouts leaders at the table they needed to come up with another product - how they were killing us with every cookie they sold us. Of course the flaca Junior League-types got pissed, so much for the good-girl credo they're supposed to follow. It's about the money, honey.

No, I didn't buy the cookies. (I'm sure someone will let me have some at the office). And I hope you don't either. Ya basta! Health is a civil right, too.


credits: www.nataleedee.com
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ok, just cuz your family is large doesn't mean you have to pick on girlscouts. That, how do you say...doesn't make mucho sense. As a consumer we have the CHOICE to purchase whatever we want, just like as a citizen we have the CHOICE to vote for whoever we want. It doesn't mean you are part of a poor, indigent population if you buy cookies and it doesn't make you a racist if you vote for Clinton. By the way, I am the thinnest person en mi familia, AND I LOVE SAMOAS y BARBACOA!
5:27 AM
pachuca said…
Wow! talk about sterotypes. GSs come in all shapes, ethnic groups with gender being the primary commonality. GS cookies are what most ignorant people think of when faced w/ a GS not about girls who are living in a migrant camp, homeless shleter or juvenile institution. GSs are there, not just in suburban neighborhoods. There are/have been troops at JT Brackenridge, McCollum HS, Roosevelt Elem, Ogden, Crockett,Truman, Adams Elem. Morrill Elem, Price, Menchaca Courts, and on and on and just who do you think are the troop leaders? not an Alamo Hts chick! its the mothers, grandmothers,sisters,aunts and yes, fathers, of these children!
GS cookie sales make it possible for ALL girls to have an opportunity to join the WORLDS LARGEST FEMALE ORGANIZATION. Yes, we are African, Russian, German, Muslim, Chinese, Filipino, and on and on. Our program materials are in so many languages your ignorant little Ivy League head will spin.One of the GS World Centers is in Mexico!So if you don't want to buy GS cookies, don't, but as a journalist you should have done a little more research.
1:55 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can I get a VIA Bus after my cerveza?

Okay, so today I met with Juan Lopez, who, like me, rides the VIA bus. If you live in the city, the bus is pretty good if you're going north/south.  It's the crosstown buses and the 551 Looper that drives me crazy.  I wish they were more colorful, like in Mexico, and that the drivers were allowed to play their music!  This Calvinist heritage!  But I love the bus.  Babies, tattoos, the elderly, ride the bus. Humanity.   For reals. Today, Juan said something really profound. "If the city is so concerned about DWIs (Los borrachos, he means), then why doesn't VIA offer 24-hour service during Fiesta?" Are you listening, VIA? I know you offer special service for the basketball games, the Rodeo, And God knows what else... Or is the City wanting the fines from the DWIs or maybe just wants to put more borrachos in jail? http://www.viasmartmove.com
3 comments
Read more

Twelve Heads in a Bag: Hector Saldana's Krayolas painting in bold, true colors

Longleaf pines are native to the southeast United States, and their conservation status is vulnerable. Only three percent of this historic, unrottable pine tree forest that can live up to 500 years remains. With long leaf pine (no smack gum) by the comeback sensations, The Krayolas, it is clear they intend to make great music for the long haul. I’m talking about one song in particular, “Twelve Heads in a Bag,” a deceptive rock-ballad (written and sung by Hector Saldana, with Max Baca on bajo sexto and Michael Guerra on accordion). Twelve Heads… is dedicated to the beheaded victims of Mexico’s drug wars. As has been said before but needs to be said again, it is the first corrido of the 21st century and it’s for the history books. Twelve Heads in a Bag makes you want to dance with a Lone Star in your hand, no matter the barbeque stains on your Tshirt, wondering why it wasn’t you in that bag.
1 comment
Read more
Today is Tuesday, May 3rd, and so much has happened.  A brain tumor.  More yoga and walking.  A little less combat.  Weight dropping.  Spirit rising.  Back in the city, where I belong.  Looking for good photos to give you, organizing my crazy files.  And a new President!  So much to say, more than beating up on him -- that will only take us so far.  Time to hit the streets, challenge the fears that he represents.  Don't be afraid, no tengan miedo.  If I survived a massive brain tumor -- big as a grapefruit -- we can survive and transcend this. More tomorrow.  One day a week from now on. 
2 comments
Read more