STEPHEN LEWIS, Post Columnist
Posted: Sunday, February 28, 2010 7:11 am

Curse those goody-goody Girl Scouts and their delicious cookies!

Just as I was fully embracing the new "Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet," the Girl Scouts roll out this year's batch of fat-making bombs.

I was barely able to train my body to subsist on two seven-layer burritos and two soft tacos a day and now they tempt me with the chocolaty peanut butter sensation of a Tagalong. Or the coconutty deliciousness of a Samoa.

I've been working like crazy to lose enough weight to fit into a pair of skinny jeans I've had my eye on. Of course, when you're 42 a pair of skinny jeans translates into "relaxed fit, roomy seat, elastic-banded waist with drawstring tie."

Hey, anything beats a pair of sweat pants when you're out on the town.

Don't you think the Girl Scout cookie's time has come and gone? I mean after all, the U.S. population is fatter now than at any time during history.

And I've got a feeling that cavemen did very little trimming of fat when they chowed down on a woolly mammoth or pulling off of the skin from a pterodactyl leg.

So if we're fatter now than cavemen were, we need to make some serious changes in American culture.

Another beef I have with Girl Scout cookies is the nutritional information on the side of each box. It says that two cookies constitutes one serving.

I think I speak for everyone who has ever opened a box of Tagalongs when I say that one serving is the entire box of cookies. And a quart of milk to wash it down!

Go ahead and put that on the side of the box. It may say 1,600 calories but by golly at least we'll know we're not lying to ourselves when a crumb of coconut falls to the floor and we try to rationalize eating another cookie by saying that crumb was 25 calories worth of cookie.

Whatever amount of cookies that is exposed to air when you open the package should equal one serving.

In other words the Tagalongs and Samoas is the whole box. The Thin Mints and Shortbread cookies would have two servings because they are packaged in two stacks inside the box.

I'm not familiar with the Girl Scouts but the whole cookie sale may be a way to add badges to your sash.

Sell 100 boxes and get your gluttony badge. Sell 250 and get your obesity badge. Shoot for the stars and sell 500 boxes and get your population control badge.

Of course I say all of this in jest. I kid because I love, and if there's one thing I love it's a box of Girl Scout cookies.

Nothing is more comforting than a box of cookies, a giant glass of milk and the right amount of self-loathing to sit and eat the whole box.

And this time of year, I've got all three.