It’s that time of the year: when New Year’s resolutions to eat more healthily and maybe lose some weight run smack into Girl Scout cookie season.

I had to go to two different Safeways today; I ended up with two boxes of Thin Mints. Admittedly, Thin Mints are wonderful, but I really do not need two boxes.

The first group of Scouts was older: they were smiling, pleasant, business-like. These girls are going to run their own companies when  they grow up. I remembered my own days selling cookies and bought a box of Thin Mints and gave them a donation in leiu of the box of Samoas I would have normally bought. I felt mostly virtuous, diminished by the fact that I really should have doubled my donation and not gotten the cookies.

The second group… let’s just say that they followed the tried and true practice of putting the youngest and absolutely cutest Scouts (usually Daisies and Brownies)  front and center. When I left the store, the youngest Scout was grinning and tunelessly singing “Girl Scout cookies! Girl Scout cookies! Girl Scout cookies! We take credit cards!”

How can you resist a pitch like that? I bought another box. (They also had a sign suggesting that you could give GS cookies for Valentine’s Day, and had a “most popular cookies” bundle. You didn’t get a price break, but you were sure of getting your Samoas.) I paid cash; had I used a credit card I would have walked away not with a single box of Thin Mints, but with two boxes of Thin Mints, two of Samoas, and one each of S’mores and Tagalongs.

Maybe I should simply wait to make New Year’s resolutions in March.