- Research the life of Edgar Allan Poe and present a one-man show to your scout troop.
- Construct a diorama that reflects the major themes of Poe’s work. Use ketchup.
- Shadow a police detective for a day. Offer to solve any unsolved ciphers. Explain that the double murder was committed by an escaped orangutan. Obviously.
- Watch a beautiful woman die an agonizing death, preferably from tuberculosis. Be sure to retain a sample of tuberculotic sputum to show your merit badge counselor.
- Write a poem for the beautiful dead woman. Employ a specific rhyme scheme as well as a symbolic creature with a catchphrase.
- Drink yourself into an alcoholic coma.
- For no fewer than seven nights, hang out outside an old man’s bedroom, watching him sleep and plotting his murder.
- In the middle of class, when your teacher least expects it, yell out, “I did it! I killed him!” In the awkward pause that follows, whisper, “Don’t any of you hear that?”
- For two weeks, complain to everyone that a black cat is following you.
- Spend at least 48 hours duct taped to a platform underneath a scythe-like pendulum, patiently waiting for hungry rats to loosen your binds. (Tip from previous scouts: Make sure they’re really hungry; otherwise they won’t touch duct tape.)
- Attend a masquerade party and infect everyone there with a fatal hemorrhagic virus.
- Wall up your nemesis in a wine cellar. He knows what he did.
Now I need the Girl Scout equivalent. Emily Dickinson teaches girls about snakes in the grass?
I feel a post brewing…
I’d prefer one based upon Colette.
😉