Make new friends but keep the old and make fun of them when the troop leader isn't looking

Just make sure nobody spills PBR on you

I'm not sure what the kids are up to these days, what with their fancy portable video game consoles and expensive cell phones, but back in my time, we had a calling. And that calling was to be the sole purveyor of addictive confectionary treats that were only available for a few months out of the year.

For one glorious month during first grade, I joined the ranks of those prized citizens known only as the Girl Scouts. It was a whirlwind of badges and after-school meetings and sit-upons. As previously mentioned, I was a shy child (that's right, Steve, I'm calling you out again!), and it was nice to be a part of a social group. However, as was often the case with much of my hypoglycemic childhood, things were about to take a dark turn.

It all started with the stupid dance badge. I was timid and didn't want to dance, and yet I still wanted the badge. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was, for I never received said badge, a fact which my injured six-year-old self has never forgotten. But this was not incentive enough to quit (though nor was it incentive enough to try harder in manner of countless movies centered around underprivileged youth for whom dance is their only outlet).

No, that incentive came perhaps a week later, following that year's cookie sales. Aimee, one of my fellow Girl Scouts, one of the sisters, made fun of me for only having sold cookies to my family. I'm pretty sure it was that very day that I packed it up and told my mother I didn't want to go back. As a practical and un-soccer-mom-like mother, she had no objections and asked few questions (the cookies were already ordered anyway: her sweet tooth was guaranteed sustenance for at least the next few months).

It is for these very traumatic reasons that I prevent the newest Next Big Thing in hipster fashions: The Girl Scout Sash. I'm sure there are scads and scads of twentysomethings who are still trying to get over their scouting days, and what better way to do that by embracing the very thing that caused you pain in the first place? Furthermore, the Girl Scout Sash is fully customizable: it can be decorated with the normal badges (I can finally have that dancing badge after all!) or with all manner of ironic buttons.

Remember, hipsters: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!