NORTH ANDOVER — Instead of visions of sugar plums dancing in his head, Stephen Reppucci sees hundreds of Thin Mints and Caramel deLites.

For the first time in six years, Reppucci forgot to order the 30 boxes of the Girl Scout cookies to flavor his ice cream at his shop Mad Maggie's. He had missed the deadline to order the cookies while preoccupied writing a business plan for the new store at 1025 Osgood St.

In desperation to have enough cookies, he placed an ad on his company's Web site, promising to buy two boxes from any Scout who got in touch with him.

"I naively thought, 'If I put a notice on the Web site, a few kids will see it."

Reppucci underestimated the power of e-mail — because one Scout leader forwarded the notice to the entire troop, followed by neighboring troops, and so on.

From Jan. 4 when he posted the ad on Mad Maggie's site to Jan. 31, he received more than 100 e-mails. So far, he has purchased 290 boxes of Thin Mints and Carmel deLites cookies at $3.50 a box.

"It turns out I'm an idiot," Reppucci said. "My wife (Maggie) was rolling her eyes when they started coming in."

Reppucci will stand by his offer to buy cookies from all the Girl Scouts who have responded to the e-mail. But he is also no longer accepting offers from Scouts.

"At this point, we may need to take out a bank loan to pay off those cookies," he joked.

While 75 percent of the Girl Scouts responding to the ad came from Andover and North Andover, others e-mailed from Newbury, Methuen, Haverhill.

"Oh, no, What have I done? What was I thinking?" he said of the overwhelming sales. "It just got out of control. I'm having nightmares and I'm laying awake at night thinking, 'What am I going to do with all these cookies.' "

Rose Flynn, leader of Girl Scout Troop 952 in Haverhill, applauds Reppucci.

"That's very noble of him to stand by his word and support the Girl Scouts," said Flynn, who leads the group with Ginny Schena. Last year, her Brownies troop sold 408 cases of cookies, for a total of $17,000.

"Girls Scouts operate by their words and their honor, and as an adult, he's portraying the same principles," Flynn said.

Reppucci has been buying Girl Scout cookies since 2003, when he purchased a machine and began making ice cream out of his garage, giving away test batches to the delight of his neighbors in Andover.

"I thought, 'Why not try this?' It was one of the first flavors of ice cream I made and it was perfect, because the mint and the chocolate cookie worked so well with the cream."

From his garage, Reppucci and his wife started a seasonal ice cream shop in North Reading in 2003, and took the Thin Mint ice cream recipe with them.

Last year, they even tried using the Girl Scouts Peanut Butter cookies — also known as Tagalongs — but the Thin Mints proved to be a favorite.

With the excess of cookies this year, the Reppuccis are planning to come up with another flavor using Girl Scouts Carmel deLites and perhaps coconut.

And, they expect to have Thin Mint ice cream right through September or October.

If you go:

What: Girl Scout Cookie ice cream kick-off

When: Feb. 26

Where: Mad Maggie's, 1025 Osgood St.

Original message in Mad Maggie's Web site:

"It's Girl Scout Cookie time, and Mad Maggie's is buying!

"We use lots of Thin Mint cookies in our Mint Cookie flavor, so we're always eager to buy cookies.

"Rather than buy all of our cookies from one Scout, we like to spread our buying around, so here's the offer: Any Girl Scout is welcome to sign us up to buy two boxes of Thin Mints. Sign us up, drop off the cookies at the store when they come in, and we'll gladly buy them from you.

"If you can, send us an e-mail or call to let us know you've signed us up, but if you don't, that's OK, we'll still buy all the cookies we can get our greedy little hands on."