Girl Scout cookies have always been suspiciously good. Sure, there have been plenty of jokes aimed at several brands of the treats; “Haha, they’re full of crack!” is one extremely common example. It’s obvious how the Scouts make a profit off of these cookies. At $8 a box, they’re far from cheap. What never made any sense to me is why people become somewhat addicted to them. At least, not until recently. After scraping together enough money to buy a box of Savannah Smiles©, I discovered the terrible secret of these cookies.

    I broke open my package of heavily copyrighted goodies, expecting the sugar-covered lemon slices the box (and six-year-old Girl Scout) had promised. Initially, I was disappointed; the fruit appeared to be so thickly covered in sugar, eating it would’ve been impossible. Inspecting the pieces that weren’t immediately visible only led to more disappointment, as they too were so thickly layered with sugar that eating them would bring dollar signs to my dentist’s eyes. Having spent the eight bucks to buy these defective cookies, it was only natural to want to be able to eat them without the risk of a semi-instant heart attack. I began to dust what I supposed was sugar off, watching the cookie get smaller and smaller. When does it get to the cookie? Is this really what I paid EIGHT DOLLARS FOR?! Several minutes of intense brushing later, what remained of the sugar coating crumbled off, revealing a small, plastic-encased circuitboard. A single red light blinked in its center. Only one word came to mind; “What.”

In an effort to preserve whatever these blinking boards were, I donned regular white hobby gloves. If this was some sort of toy-company screwup, I didn’t want to get sued for destroying a few oddly-packaged Furbie microchips. I was, however, angry that my hard-earned money had gone to waste. Hours of searching various hobby websites didn’t clear up what the blinking circuitboards were for, either. The nearest resemblance to any hobby tech was that, visually, these things looked like standard receivers for radio-controlled aircraft. But who would package hobby parts inside wedges of sugar?

Eventually, trying to figure out what benefits sugar might have on electronics (surprise: none) grew boring. The focus went to the sugar itself; was it really sugar, or some elaborate new packing material? Perhaps I had damaged not one, but TWO new and expensive technologies. Having the will to not potentially die from tasting the stuff, I fed a grain to a local beetle, who accepted it readily. Once again, this substance looked to have the same effects as sugar; the beetle’s movements grew faster and more erratic, and for a few minutes, that was it. Then it died. No warning, no slowing down, it just dropped dead.
   

I now knew from previous insect-torture experiments that this was no type of sugar. It was also not packing material. It had an effect on the beetle, rather than killing it instantly or doing nothing to it. This white powder, whatever it was, became lethal in anything amounting to a regular dose. This didn’t present quite as many problems as it would seem to; had I absorbed any of the stuff through my skin by touching it, the consequences would’ve been about as visible as my corpse. For safety’s sake, the box and its contents went into a plastic bag. In my opinion, it wasn’t in my best interests to further pursue the origin and exact nature of a lethal chemical.