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    What It's Like To Eat Girl Scout Cookies With Everything For 72 Hours

    I tried to eat Girl Scout Cookies for three days straight. It was not pretty.

    Girl Scout Cookies are mostly famous for being a rare treat, like a 17-year-cicada of sugar that bursts forth from the ground and finds itself suddenly flooding our office kitchens, dorms, and front doorsteps. Friendships are made and broken through the sharing (or not sharing) of cookies. It is the only time of year when you can tell everyone that you personally know a 7-year-old girl, and it will make you very cool and not at all creepy.

    But what is it about these delicious flavors that makes us all collectively lose our shit at once every Girl Scout Cookie season, consuming them en masse with ravenous devotion, and willing to overpay for baked goods that are gone far too soon?

    If it were possible, would we eat Girl Scout Cookies all the time?

    I decided to find out. For 72 hours straight, I attempted to eat nothing but Girl Scout Cookies or Girl Scout Cookie-flavored things.

    For this project, I was given a box each of Thin Mints, Samoas, Do-Si-Dos, Trefoils, and Savannah Smiles. Tagalongs were not available, presumably because everyone knows that Tagalongs are the best.

    Here was the rule, as there was only one:

    Every bite of food I take must be accompanied by Girl Scout Cookies, no matter how badly the two go together. This includes salad, vegetables, and tears. Water is exempted, because if I die from dehydration that will make finishing this post very complicated.

    So, this is what it was like to eat Girl Scout Cookies for 72 hours straight, which is something you've always wanted to do but should never do because it's very dangerous. Seriously. Please don't do it.

    Day 1: Thursday, March 6, 2014

    9:00 a.m.: "This is a stupid idea," my boyfriend says. "This is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea, and you will hate both food and Girl Scout Cookies afterwards."

    9:20 a.m.: I have two Samoas in the car, see how much fat is in them — 8 grams for two cookies — and then briefly consider backing out of this whole thing. There is a very real chance that I could gain 2 pounds in three days. But then I have two Thin Mints and a Trefoil and they're pretty good, so I stop caring.

    9:30 a.m.: For actual breakfast, I decide to have cheese and hummus and pretzels sprinkled with Thin Mints. As I prepare this in the BuzzFeed kitchen, there is no shortage of uncomfortable frowns and furrowed brows.

    "I'm really worried for you," one of my co-workers says, with the tone of voice one generally only uses during interventions or when trying to convince your aging parents to move into a retirement home. Only our lovely and optimistic office manager seems to be unphased, insisting that my choice in breakfast will be very tasty.

    9:48 a.m.: The cheese and Thin Mints are actually pretty good. The Thin Mints in hummus with pretzels is FUCKING DELICIOUS — so much so that I actually crumble another cookie onto it halfway though. I am just the worst human. The worst.

    Another thing I will say is that I have never felt more self-conscious about my weight. I regret putting on makeup today, as though that somehow negates my public quest to eat my weight in Girl Scout Cookies.

    11:09 a.m.: It has just occurred to me that I started this on the second day of Lent. NAILED IT.

    1:00 p.m.: I have two Thin Mints. I realize that I am genuinely getting hungry and I do not have a battle plan for lunch. I am contemplating sushi. One of my co-workers is aghast that I would do this to sushi. I go to the store and buy some sushi, because I am too stubborn to change my lunch plans just for a project and people mash up flavors on TV food shows all the time; how hard could it possibly be?

    1:44 p.m.: It occurs to me that if my parents read this they are going to be really mad, because if I die from OD'ing on sugar, they will be stuck paying back all my student loans.

    3:30 p.m.: It's time. I've gotten myself a salmon and avocado roll, thinking that the avocado will make this a relatively safe choice, as what doesn't go with avocado? I decide to take a bunch of different pieces of sushi and sprinkle them with some Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, and Savannah Smiles. A small group has gathered. I remain optimistic, still cocky off the success of my morning hummus experiment.

    It looks very pretty.

    3:34 p.m.: I hate myself and want to die.

    That is because I have just put the Girl Scout Cookie-topped sushi pieces into my mouth. I eat the Samoas first, and in fairness to Samoas, they are actually OK. I'm thinking the coconut mitigates some of the grossness.

    "Ha ha," I say. "I bet the thesis of this post will be that Girl Scout Cookies go with everything! By the end of this, I will be revolutionizing the way we utilize Girl Scout Cookies in the American kitchen! Ha ha!"

    I then eat the next piece and slide swiftly into what can only be described as a total fucking nightmare.

    I can barely swallow any of it. If I was to rank the remaining pieces by tastiness, it would be an all-way tie for fuck you. After four pieces, I give up. Defeated. A gluttonous sad sack of a person.

    I gather my pathetic, open boxes and go back to my desk, still desperately hungry. I have seen things that cannot be unseen.

    4:05 p.m.: I angrily eat a few Savannah Smiles.

    4:19 p.m.: I have tried to start a post about five times today, and keep losing the thread of it.

    4:45 p.m.: "You did this to me!" I say to my boss, whose idea this was originally. I sound like a woman yelling at her husband in the middle of giving birth, or something.

    7:00 p.m.: I am so unbelievably desperate for vegetables that I order some vegetable dumplings and attempt to crumble cookies into them, thinking that maybe dumplings have the power to cancel out the sticky, disgusting sweetness that has enveloped every bite I have taken in the last 24 hours. I feel like the main character in Crime and Punishment, whose name I would remember if my brain were not flooded with sugar. Come to think of it, this may not even be an accurate metaphor but I honestly have lost the will to live, so fuck you.

    I eventually stop eating the dumplings, and hate-eat several Dos-Si-Dos. That is what this has come to. I am literally hate-eating Girl Scout Cookies.

    Day 2: Friday, March 7, 2014

    9:00 a.m.: I wake up and have two Samoas and three Thin Mints, because I am starving, and also I have a headache the size of the sun. I am briefly ashamed of myself for only needing one night's sleep before forgetting how much I fucking hate Girl Scout Cookies.

    10:13 a.m.: It's free bagel Friday. I eat half a bagel with Trefoils crumbled on it. It's horrible. I normally love free bagel Friday. Why would I willingly do this to a free bagel? And what kind of a person am I that I am more willing to desecrate a free bagel then some perfectly good sushi? It's not like any bagels died to feed me.

    10:14 a.m.: It honestly took me like nine times to get the spelling right on the word "bagel" just then.

    11:01 a.m.: I keep trying to say the phrase "Girl Scout Cookies," but I'm so tired that all the words are slurring together and it's just coming out sounding like "gross cookies," which is honestly much more accurate.

    12:01 p.m.: My headache rages on, so I take two Advil. I have listened to that treacly "Falling Slowly" song from the movie Once about eight times, because apparently now everything I consume must be unbelievably sugary.

    12:15 p.m.: I have coconut curry for lunch. I put some Thin Mints on it. It actually isn't terrible, and the amount of relief I feel is absolute and herculean.

    Have I mentioned how constipated I am, yet? My abdomen feels like a person who has amassed $4,000 in credit card debt over the course of two days, which is not much unlike my actual life.

    My productivity is actually down to near zero. It's not that I don't want to get anything done, it's just that I want to die.

    1:50 p.m.: I realize I have been staring at my computer screen blankly for about five minutes. I decide to tell my boss that I am throwing in the towel.

    2:00 p.m.: I formally decide to throw in the towel.

    2:26 p.m.: I eat another Thin Mint. God damn it.

    2:32 p.m.: I EAT ANOTHER FUCKING THIN MINT.

    2:35 p.m.: I decide that just as soon as I am really hungry again, I am definitely throwing in the towel. For serious.

    2:36 p.m.: I eat a fucking Samoa, if that actually IS what the singular form of Samoas is, not that anyone would fucking know because no one in the history of the world has ever consumed one Samoa.

    Anyway, it's fucking tasty and I hate myself.

    2:47 p.m.: One of my co-workers has asked for feedback on a post in our group chat. I have an idea, but instead of actually expressing that idea, like a normal human, I excitedly type "oooog!", hit enter, and then immediately forget what the idea was.

    3:16 p.m.: I eat a Savannah Smile. I did this because I looked at one and then decided to pick it up and put it in my mouth and I basically have no agency over my body anymore.

    4:15 p.m.: We're in a meeting, and all I can think about is how much I want a Tagalong, and I wonder if I could keep going if I just had some Tagalongs, because they have some protein. At no point does it occur to me that this is an insane idea.

    5:00 p.m.: I am definitely throwing in the towel after this Thin Mint that I am eating, because I am definitely eating one right now. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME.

    6:45 p.m.: I get to my boyfriend's house, and my big box of cookies is immediately confiscated by him. I make a sad mewing noise, and I swipe one more cookie, and eat it. I both love it and hate it. Boyfriend insists that I eat real food, sans cookies, and I eat some pizza that has none of those little asshole cookies on it, breaking my streak for real this time.

    But he doesn't throw the big box away, and that is his mistake.

    Day 3: Saturday, March 8, 2014

    9:00 a.m.: I sneak a Thin Mint from the big box o' cookies and then realize, in the cold light of morning, that it is basically impossible to stop eating Girl Scout Cookies, even when you hate them, even when you are physically saying "I hate this" while chewing on one. I know now that the only way to actually end my suffering is to put the whole box in the trash and throw soap on it, Miranda from Sex In The City style.

    I'll let you know as soon as I've actually done that.