I'm Doing a Survey For My Girl Scout Troop...

I was a good kid when I was younger. Like good to the point where I think I was only grounded once because my friend made me sneak out of her house with her to see her boyfriend in middle school. Besides that, the only thing I really got into trouble for was slamming Grace's head in the door once (Amber assisted thank you very much). No one wanted their little sister in the room when we were making our Barbie dolls kiss! My typical Saturday mornings (when there was a sleepover involved) consisted of waking up early, making my mom cook pancakes shaped as Mickey Mouse (sorry Mom!), watching cartoons and then finding something constructive to do until my friend's parents came to pick her up. Usually it was Barbies or bikes and even the occasional Mario Brothers or Contra game. But one Saturday, we got very creative. In the days before cell phones and caller ID, we had the good, old fashioned phone book. My friend and I thought it would be funny to call everyone in my small town (approximately 2,500 people), tell them we were doing a survey for our Girl Scout troop and ask them if they had any cats and what their names were.

We figured that we needed to get organized for this so called survey, so we got a notebook and pencil ready and started the spreadsheet (pre Microsoft Excel mind you). We also figured that we may get hungry while vigorously calling and tracking everyone's cats in the town, so we made sure we had plenty of lemonade and fish sticks handy. Equipped with all the necessary tools, we pulled out the phone book, turned to page one and started dialing. Of course I was scared, so I made my friend go first. She started out by saying that she was calling from her Girl Scout troop and wanted to know if the person on the other end of the phone had any cats. If they did, we would write their names down in our notebook. I have no idea why would found this fun, but soon enough we had pages full of 'Mittens' Smokeys' and Princesses' at our disposal. Who knows what the heck we ever did with those notebooks and the cat roster for the town of Durham but it sure kept us out of trouble and out of my mom's hair on Saturday afternoons.