The XX Factor

Smartest Kid Ever Sells Girl Scout Cookies Outside a Medical Marijuana Clinic

Good thinking, kid.

Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Danielle Lei of San Francisco is one smart kid. According to Mashable, the 13-year-old and her mom chose a diabolically brilliant spot to vend Girl Scout cookies: outside the green-painted walls of a medical marijuana clinic. Unsurprisingly, sales were, um, high—the resourceful Scout dispensed 117 cookie boxes in two hours, 37 more than she managed to sell outside a neighborhood Safeway grocery store the following day. The Green Cross signed on completely:

“It’s no secret that cannabis is a powerful appetite stimulant, so we knew this would be a very beneficial endeavor for the girls,” Holli Bert, a staff member at The Green Cross, told Mashable in an email. “It’s all about location, and what better place to sell Girl Scout cookies than outside a medical cannabis collective?”

Duuude. It is a rare magical moment when the invisible hand makes a shaka sign and supply wafts up to mingle with the perfumed plumes of demand. But another cool thing about this story, besides its 13-year-old heroine monetizing the munchies for a cause, is that it may have its origins in a scam that went viral: a Photoshopped image, later debunked by Gawker, of three Girl Scouts selling cookies in front of a Colorado pot shop. Witness an ephemeral Internet spoof converted into real-world inspiration, the boisterous Web justifying its existence for another day.

Setting up your cookie shop outside a pot clinic certainly hews to the spirit of the Girl Scout motto: “Be prepared.” I also admire what is either epic stoner chillness or undiluted business acumen on the part of NorCal’s troop leadership: “We’re not telling people where they can and can’t go if it’s a legitimate business,” shrugged a spokesperson. Her laissez-faire attitude stands in refreshing contrast to the minicrises that sometimes bubble up when, say, a mom illicitly uses her Facebook page to advertise her daughter’s Thin Mints. And it indicates that at least some of the organization’s top brass refuses to be spooked by recent calls for a cookie boycott from abortion-rights opponents. (Background: A tweet linking to a slideshow that contained some glowing words for Wendy Davis caused several pro-life activists to mistakenly associate the Girl Scouts with Planned Parenthood.) Right on, ladies.