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GREENSBORO - How sweet it was and on Valentine's Day, yet.

Twelve truckloads of scrumptious Girl Scout cookies, about 840,000 boxes, descended Saturday into the waiting hands, vans and SUVs of parents or other adults affiliated with scout troops across the Triad.

The names alone are enough to start most people salivating - Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties, Lemonades, Caramel deLites ...

But here's the really delicious part: This week, Girl Scouts begin delivering these very cookies to your doorstep - if you were smart enough to part with a few bucks when they came knocking at your front porch a while back.

"All the proceeds stay within the council," said Lynn Burnette, vice president for marketing and communications of the Girl Scouts' Tarheel Triad Council. "They help to fund camps and other council facilities, training and activities."

And if you were not so astute as to order your fill of Thanks-A-Lots at home or work when you had the chance, there's still hope for your otherwise seriously endangered palate.

Troops will be selling cookies at storefront booths, starting today through March. The Triad council hopes to sell a million boxes this year, about 8,000 more than last year, said Tamara Evans, Tarheel Triad's vice president of sales and scout merchandise.

So far, local sales are running a percentage point or two behind last year at this time. But in other parts of the state, the sour economy has taken up to a 17 percent bite from 2008 tallies.

"So we feel pretty good about our sales and our chances" of surpassing the million-box mark, Burnette said.

The Girl Scouts have made a few concessions to economic turmoil this year involving Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Shortbreads.

There are two fewer cookies in each box of mints and sandwiches, four fewer Shortbreads per box.

"But there's still 40 Shortbreads in a box, so you're getting a good amount," Burnette said.

And when it comes to those Peanut Butter Patties and sandwiches, buyers need not worry about the recent salmonella outbreak. No chance of contamination in Girl Scout cookies, Burnette said: "Our baker reinspects all the peanut butter, so we have a double guarantee."

The regional group serves 13,000 girls in 13 counties and boasts more than 5,000 adult volunteers, many of whom participate in the complex distribution network, which was centered Saturday at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market and a nearby truck terminal.

Leaders of individual troops had specific pick-up times throughout Saturday, when they were scheduled to retrieve cases of cookies for divvying up later among the scouts who will make final delivery to the buyers.

In between pick-ups, crews worked together to unload the next scheduled order from each trailer and stack it neatly outside in color-coded cartons.

"It's gone really smoothly this year," said Chris Becher, a "service unit cookie manager" who was unloading two truck trailers for distribution to 38 troops.

The only minor glitches Saturday occurred when troops arrived behind schedule.

"You can't help it when someone's running late. You just adjust," said Becher, who has been a service-unit manager for eight years but is "passing the torch" to co-manager Krystal Covington next year.

Girl Scouts can begin participating in the annual sale as 5- or 6-year-old Daisies under adult supervision. By the time they are full-fledged Girl Scouts in high school, some have far-flung sales networks.

"I set a goal this year of selling 120 boxes and I sold, like, 150," said Lindsay Bringman, a scout from Western Guilford High School who was helping Saturday at the farmer's market.

She and fellow scout Sara Routh of Southeast Guilford High said they had a lot of success this year with Thin Mints and Caramel deLites.

If you're wondering why and you haven't already placed an order, there's a way to figure it out starting today at one of those handy sales booths set up from one end of the Triad to the other.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com