Girl Scouts v. Boy Scouts. Or, are Boy Scouts Always Prepared?

The only fight that ever sent me to the hospital happened when I was about eight. From my swing I taunted a tall, skinny boy, about ten years old. "Girl scouts are better than boy scouts," I chanted. He challenged me to get off the swing and say it to his face. I did. He pushed me and I punched him in the face. His nose bleeding, he pushed me into a merry go round. Hours later the doctor said I may have internal injuries and I cried and cried and told my dad I was fine and wanted to go home.

Sigh.

Anyway.

Boy Scouts are taught to always be prepared, right? Girls scouts earn patches in modern dance and baking and cultural awareness and (occasionally) some lame version of camping. But when push comes to shove, wow, we women are prepared. I don't just mean with Dentyne Ice and Chap-stick and Excedrin migraine which are all part of my emergency bag.

I mean, when a small sort of explosion like thing happened this morning on the Metro, causing a brief panic and a bit of a delay, we women were prepared. Of the dozen or so people standing near my, nearly all of the women had flashlights and sensible shoes. During the delay, a rare moment when public transportation riders are allowed to talk to each other, we talked about our flashlights and first aid kits and emergency radios and we had all read the Metro Emergency Guide. The men, well, they did not have flashlights or first aid kits or emergency radios. They were wearing sensible shoes, as they always do, but in this case I would say the women were more prepared.

Maybe band-aids wouldn't matter if we are attacked by terrorists and we just need strong people to carry the wounded out of train tunnels. But this morning, well, this morning the girl scouts were better than boy scouts.