Serendipity and the Thin Mint

When I was a junior in high school I had an English literature book titled "Serendipity." I didn't know what the word meant prior to being issued the book so I looked it up in the dictionary. It means making unexpected discoveries by accident. From that day on , it has been my favorite word. I love everything about it....not only the meaning it carries, but the cadence of the word itself. It is very melodic...ser-en-di-pity. So many times I have found myself looking for something only to find something far more interesting and meaningful in the process. I never knew there was a word to describe that experience until I serendipitously discovered it! So what's my point? Well, I had a serendipitious moment this week that was far from intellectually stimulating, but it was serendipity nonetheless. Thin Mints....I haven't had thin mints in a so long because I save my annual girl scout cookie caloric intake on the best cookie ever made...the SAMOA! But I was a sucker for some girl scouts standing out in the cold burning off their remaining inventory as us business majors like to call it. So I bought a box of Thin Mints. I had forgotten how good they were and fell in love with them all over again. One day after I had my post-lunch two cookie allotment, a bowl of fresh strawberries beckoned. So I bit into one. Wow! Was that good! The combination of the chocolate, mint and strawberry was heaven... All I kept thinking was..yup...serendipity...and oooh, let me have another one....

Now about girl scout cookies. The brains behind those cookies are geniuses. Have you met anyone who doesn't look forward to February/March when the cookies are sold? You know why aren't they sold all year round? I mean we are willing to buy multiple boxes of cookies with annually decreasing quantities in tandem with annually increasing prices of COOKIES, yes, COOKIES...But alas the girl scout cookie mystique would be gone if I could walk into the grocery store every week and pick up a box of Thin Mints and a carton of strawberries....but really, even beyond that, the brains behind those cookies are even smarter...they use cute little girls as their salespeople! No commissions, no sales training, no lavish dinners/lunches, no expense accounts...just their inherent cuteness and innocence bringing us back year after year...