Leading the Troop

Yesterday we went to a Girl Scout recruit. Cayla has been telling us for some time that she wanted to join, and since we’ve struck out in the sporting and dancing scenes, we thought we’d give it a shot. Chris, Cayla, and I all went to the meeting. I wanted Chris to come along, because I know NOTHING about scouts and we all know that he’s “super scout”. The meeting starts and we’re all asked to sit with our daughters’ age group. Although the recruiters weren’t very well prepared, they were nice ladies and they start to explain a little about scouts. One mouthy mom comes in late and complains about not having a place to sit in the kindergarten group. Chris offers her his seat, but she continues to grumble and doesn’t take it. Mind you we’re all sitting at elementary school lunch tables. One of the recruiters grabs a couple of small chairs and the lady sits in one. The meeting continues (still fairly disorganized) and the recruiters are basically just talking about the older girl’s troops they lead and how much fun they have. The late comer has gotten up from her chair and is hauling a table over to her seat. She’s kind of fumbling with it, she drags it a bit, and finally reaches her chair with the table. 1. We aren’t writing or working on the table so there was no need for one. 2. The table that she moved was all of 15 feet from her chair to begin with. If she’d really wanted to sit at a mini-table, she could have moved her chair much more easily with much less distraction. 3. Why didn’t she just take the chair that Chris offered her? The recruiters continue the meeting, but I’m mostly watching the crazy lady. One of the recruiters mentions that many famous people are girl scouts. Apparently, she didn’t really do her homework, because when “Crazy” blurted out “Like WHO?” she wasn’t really prepared to answer. The recruiter noted that Barbara Bush was a girl scout, but that was the only one who came to mind. “Crazy” asked if Sarah Palin was a scout and the recruiter didn’t know. “Crazy” grumbled again.

Now it’s time to volunteer. They are looking for parents to be troop leaders. They say it can be moms or dads. I could tell that Chris is interested, but he thought people might find a male girl scout leader to be creepy. Then he’s reading the “how to be a good troop leader” advice, and one of the first suggestions was to register and become an Adult Girl Scout. Chris realized that this was not the job for him, and he thanked God that he was given a son. One day he can run one heck of a Boy Scout troop. “Crazy” volunteered to take the kindergarten troop, and with this all of the other kinder-mothers looked around at each other. Chris is nudging me to volunteer as well, but I didn’t think I was qualified and I didn’t want to be working hand-in-hand with this not so nice lady. Also, there were probably 15-18 kinder- parents there, so that would be one very large group of girls to meet with. Chris tells me to volunteer for my own troop, and he will help me. The mother across the table chimes in, I’ll help you too! The recruiter mentions that you only need 5 girls to start a troop and any group larger than 12 gets kind of hectic. I succumb to the peer pressure and raise my hand. Immediately the ladies around me grab my roster and start signing up. So there you have it. That’s how I became a Daisy Scout Leader of a 12 member troop. I’m expecting big things from Chris in this endeavor. Remind me, why did I want him to come along to this meeting? I guess this is what I get for marrying “Super Scout”.

Any Girl Scouts out there? Help me.