I'm girl scout cookie mom for M's troop this year - as I've been for several years. Every year that she's been a girl scout, she's been the top cookie seller in her troop, each year selling more than the year before and each year working harder than the year before. This year, as in all previous years, she outdid herself and was again the top seller in the troop.
Unfortunately, we let a new girl join the troop this year - new to the troop, but not the school or the girls. She's never wanted to be in our troop before and I suspect didn't want to this year either but it was easier for her parents to have her in our troop or maybe more comfortable since they tend to have problems getting along sometimes. She was always the top seller in the troop she came from and rightly proud of it.
Orders were due Sunday, but since we didn't have school Monday or Tuesday, we collected them Wednesday. Her order came in with a check from Dad, like all the rest.
Then she found out that she wasn't top seller. She emailed the other leader about 5 times last night about the prizes . . . we have to order extra cookies of each kind to round up to the next highest case (12 boxes a case and you must order even cases - if the troop needs 13 thin mints, we must order 2 cases and those 11 extra boxes go to whichever girl didn't get a prize or was near the next prize level). She was 15 boxes short of the next prize level but wanted to be bumped. The other leader wouldn't promise until we had an accurate count of how many extra boxes we were ordering or who needed how many just to get the first prize.
So this child's father emails this morning that he forgot to add his cookies to her order and he orders the 15 extra boxes.
So tell me . . . . if you run really fast after the race is over and catch up with the winner, does that give you first place? Is that the kind of lesson we want to teach our children? And is that what Girl Scouting is all about?