Present Tense

After hearing a lot about it on NPR, I just started watching HBO’s, The Wire, on DVD. If you haven’t had the chance, each season focuses on one aspect of life in Baltimore. Season one focused on the West Baltimore drug trade. D’Angelo Barksdale, a fictional lieutenant and the nephew of Baltimore’s drug kingpin, was one of the key players.

Earlier this month I was selling Girl Scout cookies with Kennedy. My role as parent in charge of the sales site was much the same as D’Angelo Barksdale’s role selling crack in the Baltimore projects. I brought a lawn chair and settled discreetly into the background, watching out for theft or any untoward behavior. I also held the cookie money.

I wasn’t really paying attention and when I reached close to $100 in sales I got scared. Wanting to make sure our count was right, I made furious calculations. At one point, it seemed as if we were off by as much as $50! 

Probably a result of watching so much of The Wire, I felt certain one of those nice Safeway shoppers had hoodwinked my girls.

Turns out it’s just much harder to keep track of the money than I expected. As I remember, I was never any good at selling narcotics either.