I caught my wife muttering curses under her breath and filling out forms that looked strangely familiar the other day. On closer inspection, I realized they were Girl Scout Cookie forms.

“Sweetie,” I said, approaching the subject with trepidation, “didn’t you deal with Girl Scout Cookies last year? Isn’t it someone else’s turn?”

“Yes, and [REDACTED] said she’d do it, which means I have to do it or everything’s going to be messed up” she replied.

Oh boy, I thought. Here we go again.

Yes, it’s that time of year again when those adorable little girls in uniforms who look like they could sell Donald Trump the Brooklyn Bridge marshal their ranks into the cutest sales force on the planet to sell us drugs.

And they are drugs. There’s no better way to explain the way some of you drool over Thin Mints.

I did this last year but as a service I’m going to go over one more time how Girl Scout cookies work. Mainly because I’m sick of them after three weeks and feel like ruining them for everyone. So let’s have a refresher, shall we?

We start with the baking and packaging of said cookies. They are limited in quantity each year and supply is basically limited to whatever the year’s “harvest” brings. Yes, they’re not constructed from anything illegal but I contend the bakers of Girl Scout Cookies operate like moonshiners. You ever see a baker making Girl Scout Cookies? That’s why you never see a moonshine still operating either.

Now if you personally want Girl Scout Cookies you need to know someone who knows someone that’s got access to the supply the harvest yields. You then tell your dealer—erm, contact—what you want and then they go to their dealer—erm, scout, and place the order.

On the other side of the transaction, Cookie sales usually begin with the moms in a troop playing a game of “Not Me” until someone’s saddled with the job of handling cookie sales. Unless some mom’s just the alpha take-charge type and then they’re the one that does it all.

After the girls get initial orders from their neighborhood, family and friends, the order goes to the troop mom/moms who volunteered to do distribution. This is where the cookies are brought to a centralized drop off point for all the troop moms and dads so said cookies can be widely distributed to the community.

If you are lucky enough to go to distribution you will be amazed. The volunteers will fill your SUV or minivan to the gills with cases of cookies at speeds that would make the Flash blush.

Once the cookies come home the garage is basically turned into a weight house. All the cookies are sorted by orders and packaged for the individual girls and moms. This will injure my back as the sheer amount of cookies these girls move is insane.

Hey, I didn’t choose the life of a thug. It chose me.

Anyway if your spouse is the “weight house boss” be prepared to spend insane amounts of time looking for specific boxes of cookies if she finds any missing. Last year witnessed a very impressive display of scouting for eight missing boxes of Trefoils that would’ve made Tony Montana blush.

And since Girl Scouts at my daughter’s level are a “girl led” troop, I stayed outside long enough to make sure I wasn’t needed and then played on my son’s Nintendo Switch.

Once the cookies come in it’s time to distribute. I took all the local orders around and collected the necessary money. Any tips I get go straight to the troop. I’m an asshole, but I’m a principled asshole. With any luck, I’ll get all the deliveries in a day.

That leaves the consumers to do what drug addicts normally do: eat a couple, swear they’ll freeze the rest, and wonder at 2 AM how so many disappeared so fast.

Then they start plotting how to get more.

And that, my friends, is why Girl Scouts run cookie booths.

See y’all next week!