Cookies and Mrs. Teal

First Class Cookie Shirt

Now that my favorite cookies will be delivered in the next week or so, that always reminds me of my most eccentric cookie customer. Yes, I was a Girl Scout - not the camping kind but I sold the heck out of the cookies. Thin Mints, Savannahs, Shortbread, Peanut butter... (Okay those are the OLD names for some of them.) In fact I still have the cookie shirt I earned one year.

Like today, as Girl Scouts we were supposed to sell to people we know. Well, after my mom would order for the house and Dad would order for where he worked, then I always had to go to the neighbors.

The one neighbor I like to go to the most was Mrs. Teal. Now, she was the definition of eccentric but to a kid, she had a cool house. Mrs. Teal couldn't eat the cookies. She was a diabetic but she would buy five cases each year. It always amazed me. She put them in her freezer for when she had "company."

Mrs. Teal used to live directly across the street from us.. I knew there was had to have been a Mr. but he died before I knew her. She sold the old two story house and bought a modular and put it in the field directly to the east of the old house. She even had a huge smiley face painted on the side facing the street.

Okay- this is the big, yellow smiley face of the 70's but it took up most of the side of the house.

Anyhow... when I would go to sell cookies, I had to visit. (Remember this was the 70's) I got to have tea and cookies. If she was out of 'my' cookies, there were always others. I remember blabbering on and on about school and such things as we sat at the kitchen/dining room table. She always seemed genuinely interested about the goings on at school. Could be she was lonely too and was just being polite. After awhile, it was time to go, but I also went home with the rest of the cookies to share with the family.

I sold cookies to her for several years even up until I was a junior or senior in high school. As I got older the visits got shorter and less frequent but her house was still full of furniture and loads of pillows. One time she also gave my family a fuzzy pink potty seat cover seat. We couldn't use it with males in the house but she thought we could.

As you do, kids grow up move on and go on to other things but whenever I get my box of Thin Mints, I do remember the yellow smiley face and Mrs. Teal.