A Cookie by Any Other Name

I’ve felt bad for Dolores lately. Without going into too much detail, I’ll simply say that she has been very busy at work lately.

I know that this blog is one of her little joys in life…and that when she has an extended period of “un-updating-i-ness” she feels bad. Seeing her exhausted from work is bad enough; I don’t want this blog stuff (which is supposed to be fun) exacerbating her situation. That is where I come in. I’m going to take it upon myself to contribute something to the blog right now. Give Dolores one less thing to worry about.

Here’s the problem; I have nothing to write about. Wait; never mind…just thought of something. Ok, this is a topic that has undoubtedly received a lot of attention over the past couple of years. No, I’m not talking about healthcare reform. I’m talking, of course, about all of this name changing activity taking place in the world of Girl Scout Cookies…most notably, the change from “Samoas” to “caramel delights”.

I can only assume that the name change was spurred on by some sort of Samoan Rights Activist, sick of his (or her) peoples’ legacy being linked to a chocolate, caramel and coconut concoction typically sold door to door by little girls in the suburbs. But really…is a cookie the worst thing that a nationality can be associated with? Let’s try out a little game of word association. I’ll type a Nationality…you pause for a second and think of an association and move on. Ok, ready?

WORD 01: Polish

WORD 02: Kazakhstanian

WORD 03: German

Ok, you probably thought of the words stupid, Borat and Nazis there. Comparatively…a cookie doesn’t seem so bad huh?

Granted, Caramel Delights is not such an awful name; it’s descriptive, it gets the job done…but at the end of the day, it just lacks personality. Imagine if Steve Jobs had decided to go with the name “Digital pocket music player” instead of “iPod”…I don’t think Apple would be where they are today. Additionally, one could argue that the name “Samoa” is, in fact, very descriptive. Think about it. Both of them are kind of brown, both of them are often round, both of them are striped and delicious. The name just makes sense.

Ok, I’m done. If anybody was offended by anything above…lighten up. I’m obviously joking. In all seriousness, I doubt the cookie (Samoa) and the people (Samoan) are even linked. The cookie’s name probably comes from something like a little kid mumbling the words “gimme sa moa” (give me some more). When his mother heard this, she probably exclaimed “that’s genius…we should call the cookies ‘samoas’…we’ll sell a million”. And you know what? She was right.

-Chris