This evening I entered the Alewife T station to an unsettling din of boy-yelling. The clamor rang out like a unruly boys choir, with unchanged male voices unleashing indiscernible warbles that were promptly lost within the cavernous station. As I neared the turnstiles, a young boy in a Boy Scout uniform approached me with a tray of tooth-picked bits of chocolate and clearly pronounced the sentiment of the mad chants: “Free fudge samples!”
Yes, it seems that the Boy Scouts are taking fund-raising tips from their female counterparts. And, not to be outdone by the puerile connotations of “Girl Scout Cookies,” they are hawking “Boy Scout Fudge.”
The samples were an enticement, you see, for $5 boxes of fudge stacked at a centrally-located folding table, manned by two moms who were watching their charges vigorously dart around the subway station while probably wishing they had daughters.
The unreceptive attitude of the commuter crowd did little to dampen the tykes’ enthusiasm; I suppose children might find it strange that adults aren’t as sugar-crazy as they are, but they seemed to nobly bear the downcast vacant eyes of the people who gently streamed past the ricocheting trays, intent on apathy.
While it always gladdens my heart to see Boy Scouts fearlessly brandishing their dorky uniforms to the world, there’s something distinctively unappetizing about accepting unwrapped confectionary from a tray borne by snot-covered hands in a subway station. Isn’t that how plagues start?
