When I was a kid, once a year my mother would find some Girl Scouts and order up several boxes of cookies. We’d get a couple boxes of tasty Thin Mints, some humdrum Tagalongs, and at least one box of the execreble Trefoils. Then there would be three boxes of the delicious, perfect-in-every-way Samoas (depending on what part of the country you live in, you may know them as “Caramel DeLites”). The problem was that Samoas were the favorite of my parents as well, and all three of us had a nasty habit of covert late-night binging. Since we all knew that the Samoas would be gone within a matter of hours, it was like an annual race to consume as many Samoas as possible before the rest of the family could. Within a day or two, the Samoas would be gone. The Trefoils would hang out in the kitchen for another three months, taunting me with their non-Samoaness.

As an adult, I’m always on the lookout for Samoas during Girl Scout season. But it’s not always easy to find Girl Scouts (and people get the wrong idea if you ask around for them). Also, when I can find them selling cookies, half of the time they’re out of Samoas. Never out of Trefoils, though.

That scarcity may have led to a bit of an obsession. It’s hard to get obsessed over, for example, Oreos – since you can drop by a grocery store and buy as many as you want. But when a cookie is both perfectly delicious and nearly impossible for me to get, that can lead to a bit of craziness when I do land a good connection. The good news is that I think I’ve paid for the college education of several local Girl Scouts. Did I go overboard this year? Look at these pictures and decide for yourself…