On Boy Scout popcorn (what's the opposite of an ode?)
Hi!
Did you know that late September is peak Boy Scout popcorn season? All across the land, Scouts are tightening their neckerchiefs and heading out to hawk caramel corn to their uninterested neighbors. Selling popcorn was the bane of my existence, and of the various autumnal traumas of my youth (fighting with my ex-stepdad about leaf raking, not getting cast in the fall play junior year), it’s the one I flashback to the most this time of year.
In the same way that Girl Scouts sell cookies to raise money for their Troops, Boy Scouts sell popcorn in an assortment of flavors and styles: cheesy, chocolatey, microwavable, kettled, etc. If you’ve read the copy on a box of Thin Mints, you’re well aware that the Girl Scout cookie program teaches things like goal setting, money management, and people skills. Unfortunately, selling Boy Scout popcorn just taught me that people only want to buy Girl Scout cookies. Seriously, nooooobody wants to buy Boy Scout popcorn. It’s expensive, it’s a pre-order sale, and I’ll go there: Girl Scouts are cute, Boy Scouts are ugly. When I say that peddling my wares was an uphill battle, I mean it was difficult and also I literally had to climb hills in my town as I went door-to-door.
Popcorn was a competitive sport in Troop 5. If you lived near another Scout, it was a race to sell to your neighbors; if a Scout disrespected territory lines and sold on someone else’s street, a full-on turf war erupted. What were we competing for? Prizes, ranging from frisbees and compasses all the way to mountain bikes and flat-screen TVs1. Also glory, in the form of our Scoutmaster announcing the current top three salesmen at every Troop meeting. The Scouts in the top three always happened to be the kids whose parents were rich or, like, owned their own company. Huh, what a coincidence that your dad passed around your order sheet at work and now randomly you’re in the lead! My parents, bless their best efforts, didn’t have that kind of pull at their jobs. I guess my mom could’ve put some pressure on my au pairs to order from me, but that’s one measly sale to whichever Eastern European teenager was living in our attic at the time.
The only way I could possibly break into the leaderboard was to break the popcorn safety rules, which were:
#1: Never sell after dark. You know when people are home from work? After dark. Selling in the daylight after school meant unanswered doorbells down the block; I wouldn’t make a dime, plus I’d eat up precious time I needed for leaf raking (see: aforementioned fights with my ex-stepdad). Right before dinner became my sweet spot.
#2: Always go door-to-door with a buddy. If I pounded the pavement with another Scout, we’d have to split our sales, and there wasn’t an equitable way to do that. If we claimed every other house, we might get a purchase at the first house and the door slammed in our faces at the next. A slightly better approach was to take turns on each successful sale, but inevitably I’d sell one $8 caramel corn tin and my friend would sell three boxes of Unbelievable Butter microwave popcorn for $15 a pop. That ain’t it, kid! I started selling solo.
#3: Never enter someone’s house. A safety no-brainer, especially if you’re ignoring Rules #1-2, and yet… if I was about to close and the person said, “Come inside while I grab my checkbook,” I couldn’t be rude and risk them changing their mind. I’d venture in, prepared to fight for my life if things got Lovely Bones-y, but they never did. So there!
Even with increased odds of making a sale, I was miserable during every solitary second of popcorn hustling. I couldn’t stomach the constant rejection, I hated bothering people at their homes, I was fucking freezing by October and my uniform beret didn’t do shit for heat retention… A woman once told me she’d like to buy popcorn but couldn’t because of the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policy, and it’s like… well, I’m going to be gay eventually, so can you be pro-me and buy some Chocolatey Caramel Crunch so I can go do my homework?
At some point in maybe 2010, as I shivered my way home in the dusk, clutching my worn, mostly blank order sheet, I made a vow that if I got asked to order Scout popcorn as an adult, I would always buy it – even if a whole Troop had already been to my door. I finally made good on that vow in 2021 when I spotted a Scout selling outside a supermarket; as I strode across the parking lot to him, orchestral music swelled and we both began to sing: 🎶 I’ve looked at life from both sides now… 🎶
Jk jk, it was a non-cinematic transaction. But I have looked at Scout popcorn from both sides now, and from that vantage point, I can confirm that it is way overpriced. ❤️
Oh also I usually fucked up the numbers on my order sheet so they didn’t match the money I’d collected and it was a nightmare problem year after year. ❤️❤️❤️
As far as I’m aware, no Scout has ever sold enough popcorn to earn a mountain bike or a flat-screen TV. I think the highest-value prize I ever got was a lantern. Also, I Googled “Boy Scout popcorn prizes 2023” to see what the kids are aiming for these days, and it looks like they just get Amazon gift cards now. Depressing!
My son was briefly a Boy Scout, and yes, that popcorn is EXPENSIVE. Also, his troop also sold wreaths and we're Jewish, so my husband had to have some deep thoughts about that. He decided it's not like it was a Christmas tree, so it was kosher, so to speak. My son may have sold just as many wreaths as popcorn...
as someone who was also a boy scout during that period, my troop decided to forgo popcorn sales becsause of the cost. instead we sold...........,,,..,,,,PINESTRAW!! which in some ways feels more humiliating, especially when they could pay an additional $20 for us to spread it for them. and i think the only prizes we got were like....a sleeping bag mat? so that's what i got for my underpaid labor being, basically, a landscaper LOL