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And it looked like they meant BUSINESS. Within ten minutes, they had organized everyone at the park cleanup into separate teams, with a Girl Scout in charge of each one.

My team was responsible for raking leaves in the playground area, and the girl in charge of my group was a Brownie. It was a little embarrassing, but to be honest with you, I was HAPPY the Girl Scouts came in and whipped everybody into shape. Every time I've seen the Girl Scouts get involved with a project, I've been IMPRESSED. A few months ago, the town wanted to build a community garden, but nobody could get their act together and the project fizzled out.

But then the Girl Scouts swooped in and built the whole thing on a Sunday afternoon. I'll tell you this; If you put a group of boys my age in charge of something like that, nothing good would come of it. ESPECIALLY if there were power tools involved.

Even though they were at the town park to work, the Girl Scouts weren't gonna let an opportunity to do some fundraising pass them by. They set up a stand to sell cookies, and one of their first customers was MOM. So I guess she'd changed her mind about people selling stuff to volunteers. I was glad the Girl Scouts were running the show, but they were working us HARD. After an hour of raking, I was worn out and wanted to go home. But it was clear they weren't letting ANYONE go until the last leaf was bagged. Another person in my group who seemed a little worn out was my Homework Buddy, Frew.

OTHER people figured out how smart Frew is, and a bunch of grown-ups started bugging him for stuff they'd usually get from their PHONES. FREW! HOW'S THE STOCK MARKET TRENDING? FREW! WHAT'S THE WEATHER FORECAST FOR THIS WEEKEND? FREW! HAVE ANY CATS DONE ANYTHING AMUSING TODAY? I noticed that every half hour, the Girl Scouts rotated from group to group. So during a changing of the guard, I saw my opportunity and TOOK it.

I knew EXACTLY where I was headed, too: the creek. When I was on the swim team in first grade, Dad used to drop me off at the town pool every day. But the MINUTE he drove away, I'd run down to the creek and catch minnows until practice was over. I'd always make sure I got back to the pool before Dad came to pick me up, and I'd jump in at the last second so it looked like I'd been swimming the whole time.