How the cookie crumbles: Girl Scouts’ new Raspberry Rally sells out on the first day

I’m a sucker for Girl Scout Cookies.

Each year, I try dodging the smiling faces stationed outside of grocery stores peddling their confectionary goodness. I can’t say no even though I usually have several boxes stashed in my freezer. My intervention method has been to order groceries online so I won’t have to see the girls.

So what did the Girl Scouts do this year? Introduced Raspberry Rally, a new cookie sold exclusively online starting Feb. 27 and shipped directly to customers.

What did this former Brownie, Girl Scout and Girl Scouts of the USA intern do when she heard? Bookmarked three websites to order them.

The Raspberry Rally is a thin, crispy cookie infused with raspberry flavor and dipped in the same chocolaty coating as a thin mint — here, take my money.

Last week, I checked the date; it was only Friday.

“Few more days before the portal will open,” I thought to myself.

Then on Monday, I viewed a webpage by a Brownie in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The words “sold out” crushed my soul. Then a check of a webpage by a Brownie in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The same two words.

I wasn’t going to be defeated.

My final attempt was a page by a Girl Scout in Las Vegas. A gray-shaded box next to the Raspberry Rally read, “sold out.”

“How is this happening?” I said aloud. (That was the G-rated version.)

It wasn’t just me. Cookie shortages are being reported across the country.

“The Raspberry Rally sold out at the end of the day in the Hampton Roads area,” said Shanise Harris, the public relations manager for the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast, Tuesday.

It was a supply chain issue, she explained. The core cookies — Thin Mints, Samoas and Trefoils — were a production priority, and fewer of the Raspberry Rally were made.

Harris suggests people purchase an extra box of the other cookies to support the girls.

Some people are desperate, though. EBay has boxes of Raspberry Rallies for sale; one vendor is offering a box for $49.99, plus $12.55 in shipping. The cookies would normally sell for $4 with a four-box minimum; shipping, $12.99.

My only option is to go to the grocery store and look for those smiling faces, hoping (guiltily) they might be peddling what is supposed to be an exclusively online product.

The girls got me hooked again.

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