Green Neck

You Might be A Green Neck If.....

A few years ago, the WAGGGS-L e-mail list got caught up in a discussion of strange behaviors by "true" Girl Guides/Girl Scouts ("green necks"). The items laughingly submitted were collected by Nancy W., an adult Girl Scout from Illinois. Her Girl Scout web site disappeared, so (with her permission) I'm posting the collection she originally put together...

Some of these are mildly amusing, some are absolutely hysterical, and some ...well, apparently you had to be there! This is a relatively complete list, with no attempt to "winnow the chaff". If you want to use all or part of this list, some editing will be required.

You may be a green-neck if . . .

The majority of your wardrobe consists of GS t-shirts.
You own handbooks for older levels that you (or your daughter) haven't reached yet.
You still have every piece of paper relating to GS that's crossed your threshold.
Your kids have posted your name to a milk carton as missing [when you're actually at GS events].
You have green blood (it's not just for Vulcans).
You've gained more than 5 pounds during cookie time.
Your family eats fast food more than twice a week because of GS meetings.
You can't find last year's tax return but you know exactly where the instructions are for the Christmas angel craft.
You can't say no when an event needs planning.
People stop you at the market to ask how to join Girl Scouting/Guiding.
You always say, "Of course we have room for one more girl."
You never throw out ANYTHING without first thinking 'Could the troop use this in some way?'
You make campfire foods at home and serve them to your family to try out new recipes.
You take paper out of the recycling bin at your office because you know the scouts can use it for their next project.
You buy bizarre craft items at craft stores if they're on sale because you're sure that someday you'll use them.
Any of your kid's old crayons, scissors, glue that they're ready to throw out goes into the 'bucket' for the troop.
Your garage looks like a camp store.
At least one room in your house ALWAYS has some kind of Girl Scout paperwork strewn all over it.
You ask every place you visit if they do anything special for Girl Scouts for tours.
Your son knows all the Girl Scout songs (although he probably wouldn't admit it to any of his friends...).
You know at least 3 other adult members/leaders phone numbers for memory.
You buy things because they are 'girl scout' colors.
You have a recurring nightmare that your awards ceremony is coming up, and you have a pile of patches and badges and no clue who earned them.
Your husband registers as an adult member so he can see you now and then.
You buy office furniture for your home to file, store, and organize all your scouting "stuff"!
People stop you at work to buy cookies...in July...and you HAVE some.
You introduce your daughters by program level.
You buy a pair of slacks or socks because they match the color of your uniform.
You bring your daughter's handbook on vacation to see if you can knock off a few try-it/badge/IPP requirements.
You have your council's phone number on speed dial.
You can't remember a relative's birthday, but you do remember Juliette Low's.
You donate to AFG every year to make sure you can keep your collection of mugs current.
You plan your vacation around the council's day camp schedule.
You not only recruit your niece into Brownies, but get your sister to lead her troop!
You shop at the council store for birthday party gifts.
You save the cores from toilet paper and paper towels, scraps of gift wrap paper and wallpaper, scraps of ribbon, fabric, and yarn, film canisters, and the gold wrappers from Boy Scout candy bars (to make origami flowers) for the Gold Award ceremony.
You ask your colleagues and friends to save any or all of the above.
When attending college you roast mini marshmallows on a paper clip over a candle to make mini s'mores in your dorm room while singing "Rise Up O Flame."
After the hurricane/tornado/earthquake/flood knocks out your power you are happy as a clam cooking for the neighbors with your vagabond stove and cardboard box oven.
You buy a storage shed just to have enough room to keep troop supplies.
Your husband is afraid to take out the trash until you check it for possible craft materials.
You carry the troop telephone list, a first aid kit, paper towels, wet wipes, and a "lost and found" box in your car.
You have sorted out the badges for all twenty girls in your troop for the awards ceremony tomorrow, but you haven't sewn on your daughter's badges from the last ceremony.
Every girl in the troop has read the latest troop newsletter except your daughter, because she was asleep when you finally finished typing it and you forgot to give her one.
You have two grocery sacks filled with styrofoam meat trays in the garage just in case you might need them for something.
Your living room is full of camping equipment.
You can recite your council's "permission slip form" from memory.
You have a bookcase full of Girl Scout related reference materials.
You save your dryer lint to make fire starters.
When somebody points to any one of the girls in your troop and asks "Is that your kid?", you automatically say, "Yes!"
When You use the saying "my girls" yet you only have 1 daughter...
Or even better - when you use the saying "my girls" and you don't have *any* children!
When the family picnic gets rained out and all adults look at you when the children start running crazy...(or any holiday for that matter..)
And you think up a craft using paper bags, paper plates or whatever is handy?
Friends or relives call you up with so-so's birthday party and they want it to be a princess party!! You can help with crafts and decorations!!
Find your self asking do you give discounts to girl scout troops. . . at a sport shop? (Hey they had camping stuff on sale...)
You can line your girls up in alphabetical order without looking.
Your family vacation is going camping with your troop.
You have more photos of your troop than of your family.
AND the troop photos are all nicely pasted in albums, and the family pix are in shoeboxes!
You get really excited when you find out that your dad is still saving coffee cans behind your mother's back!
You get upset when your husband dares to think that he can use that tuna can you have been saving.
You encourage your kids to eat tuna fish sandwiches to get the empty cans.
It takes a couple of hours to answer when your friends ask you to help come up with an outdoor cooking recipe for the "ladies only" camping trip as you have to have to run through all of your files!
You have a big red S on your forehead.
You have forgotten how to say NO, or how to spell it!
In looking for a new home, you try to find one that has an extra room to store your GS stuff in!!
You design and build a key hole fire place in your back yard. ...for the troop! ...just to practice! ...ok, for yourself.
When you plan a vacation to a different area of the country, you try to figure out a way to convince your husband to side track to the nearest council office for a visit and to check out if they have something your council doesn't have (ceremonies, special patches, etc.).
When, on a weekend hop, you try and convince your partner that you really should go on thursday, so that you have friday to check out that council, after you could get lost!
And don't forget to convince him to meet your online friends living in that area!
You beg your husband for the latest computer equipment to use just for yourself so you have more room to add as much girl scout information as you can possibly find on the internet.
You get up real early to check your e-mail for the WAGGGS list and then spend the next hour checking through all your information to e-mail back to those in need of information you have stored somewhere.
The main reason you are on an internet is to find all the Girl Scout information you could possibly want or need. Then you store it on 25 different disks, labeled appropriately (ceremonies, games, songs, websites, etc.) for that time when you need it.
You see the above posted by a true Green Neck and you've got to imprint it into your brain as it's a very good Girl Scout idea to share!!
Neighborhood children come to your house all summer long asking "Got any gimp?" and you always do.
Co workers ask if you've got: an aspirin, a needle and thread, a safety pin...and you always do!
You got tears in your eyes reading the descriptions of the Sing-along.
You were a scout from age 7 to age 18.
You were a Sea Explorer Scout from 18 to 21 because your Mariner Ship was cross-registered (the only all-girl SE ship, I might add) so you could keep doing Girl Scout activities.
You were absolutely estatic your first year of college to buy cookies from your dorm advisor's daughter because it was the first time in 11 years you didn't have to sell cookies.
You haven't been a registered Girl Scout for almost 10 years, but when you were out on the 'Net looking for craft ideas for work and stumbled across the WAGGGS-L address you immediately subscribed. And, now, ~three months later, you still read every Digest when it comes in at work, even if the boss is walking by (my monitor faces away from the door :-) ) because you're gathering all sorts of ideas for that time, somewhere in the future, when you'll be leading your own daughter's troop.
You have been waiting with bated breath for the new IPP books to come out, then bought the first one when they did, but have not had time to read it yet.
You and your family of 7 are drinking all of your milk out of quart waxed cardboard containers because you saw this really cool way to cook hotdogs from the cyber cookbook and you need 30 containers by September!
You have at least one saucepan that is a little black round the outside, despite hours of scrubbing?
Most of your cutlery has the remnants of nail-varnished initials from last year's camp?
You quickly take a Lifetime Membership for yourself AND dh before the rate increases in order to save $$.
Troop equipment lives in your car (van/truck).
Everyone always asks you if you have a ..... (and you do, or can find it).
Your planning calendar has ALL the Girl Scout/Guide events entered in it (for the next 3-6 months) but not the business meeting tomorrow.
You go in to the office early just to read the WAGGGS-L (after chatting past midnite on #wagggschat).
You have a troop/Service Unit Web site but not one for you or your family.
When you maintain several Girl Scout websites, and not one for yourself.
The other clubs website you maintain has links to the Girl Scout sites.
The director of your service unit's day camp calls you at eleven o'clock at night on Sunday telling you that late registrations have doubled the size of day camp- from 46 to 92- and asks "Can you serve as camp councilor, and by the way your older girl would like to get some program aide hours in, wouldn't she? Camp's on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday"... And you say 'Yes' then scramble to find a sitter for your own younger child...
The Council Program director calls you at three in the afternoon to talk about a new project that she needs a committee to think out policies for, and you agree to serve...
At a leader's recognition event, the Executive Director of the Council invites leaders to keep in closer touch with the office, then looks directly at you and says with a smile, "That doesn't mean you." Then explains to the group that she regularly hears from you on Council business via e-mail...
A fellow leader calls you, desperate, saying that the older girl troop who was supposed to come to conduct bridging for her brownies never showed up, and you grab your older scout and arrive there within 15 minutes...
You can't use your front entrance because the entryway is filled from floor to ceiling with craft materials, some new, some remnants of other crafts...
You run into teenage girls who had been part of your troops when they were brownies or juniors and the girls hug you...
At your daughter's wedding, the 26 year old Matron of Honor drags her husband over to you and says, "Honey, I want you to meet my Girl Scout Leader!"
You are at an event as a participant and other leaders mistake you for event staff.
At a Basic Leader training and the trainer is asked about internet sites for GS she tells everyone to contact you about that information...my daughter couldn't believe it and my co-leader who was at the same training tried very hard to hide her amusement! I was in the building at a different training session.
You've been copying and pasting this thread into your word processing program.
One consideration while buying your next vehicle is "how many girls with sleeping bags and backpacks can I fit in this thing"?
You attend a large parade with the rest of your family--they are all oohing and aahing over the floats and marching bands--while you are craning your neck to be the first to call out (with mother tears in your eyes) "HERE COME THE BROWNIES!" (irregardless of whether your daughter is one of the Brownies or not!)
You live on Daisy Lane (as anyone who has traded patches with me already knows).
You still have a sign in your kitchen window that says "It's Girl Scout Cookie Time." And it is still Girl Scout cookie time based on the number of boxes still on hand.
3 months after the cookie sale's official end, your kids are begging you to buy some different cookies at the store.
You make the rounds at all the local dollar stores periodically just to see if there might be something interesting to make swaps or crafts with.
You make the rounds at a half dozen or so used book stores every 4 to 6 months to see if you can find any old Girl Scout handbooks.
You buy rolls of wallpaper from the clearance bin for a dollar or two a roll with no specific project in mind, you just know you'll think of some way the girls can use it. (This may also include almost any item in a clearance bin for a dollar or two.)
You see a post regarding crystals and spend 20 minutes looking for that booklet you got at WOW (Weekend of Workshops)...I know it's here somewhere!!!!
Your family tours Europe and you HAVE to see PAX Lodge and Our Chalet, and your husband says, "Wouldn't this be a great experience for our daughters?"
You hunt garage sales for troop equipment, and you have your friends keep their eyes open too!
You hunt used book stores for anything that would help your troop. (I found "30 Paper Airplanes" and thought, "Aha! The Aerospace badge!")
You and your daughters love practicing all their outdoor skills, using their Girl Scout training, whenever the family goes camping. (Love those dunk bags!)
You go through magazines like "Family Fun" and collect all the ideas that would be terrific for your girls (and yes, my troop is "my girls!") (Be sure to check out the latest June/July special issue--there's how to make a doll's house and furniture out of everyday items, a wind toy, a fingerpaint recipe, an obstacle course, friendship bracelets, wind chimes, and a sun dial, among other things!)
You are watching Xena, Warrior Princess (which is soooo bad that it is good), as they are in some encampment, and think "nice lashing!".
After filling in your calendar with the up-coming Girl Scout meetings and events for the next 12 months you turn to your husband/mate and say you will not volunteer for another thing and he/she just laughs!
The last 20 times you have gotten a babysitter it was so that you could attend Girl Scout meetings and events and not once for a night out with your hubby!
Everyone you meet in the grocery store knows of your participation in scouting and needs advice on something and you know the answer.
Every time you see a cute stuffed animal in a store you wonder "Would this make a great troop mascot?"
You frantically look through gift shops for a souvenir patch or pin and get upset if they don't have any.
You have several hats...all with swaps hanging on them.
You are determined to get a council patch/guide badge from all over the world...no matter how much it costs!!
You ask yourself EVERY year if you are going to be a leader again..after a long exhausting scouting year..you ponder..then say..might as well do it again as you get a big hug from one of your scouts.
You are a volunteer for several scouting positions.
You are hosts to scouts/guides visiting your area.
Your tape player in your car has the tape.."Still Singing After All These Years" still in it.
After a major ice storm that brings down hun