My
husband has been in mourning for a few days now. He has lost his best friend, one who has been by his side since
childhood and has comforted him during rough times, always managing to bring a
smile to his face whenever he was feeling down.
I
am talking about the Hostess Twinkie.
It’s
difficult to believe that after all these years, Twinkies may cease to exist.
Hostess, the company that manufactures (or should I say manufactured?) the
cream-filled sponge cake, said people are eating healthier nowadays, which is
part of the reason for the company’s untimely demise.
My
husband says he doesn’t care if the Twinkie is nothing more than a lard-filled
torpedo aimed directly at his heart, it still beats a “healthy” salad any day.
I
can remember eating Twinkies as part of my daily food group when I was a kid.
They were bigger than the Twinkies of today, and came two in a package for only
a dime. I convinced myself that because Twinkies were made of lightweight, airy
sponge cake, they probably contained only half the calories of something like a
slab of chocolate cake…so I could eat twice as many of them.
On
the news the other night, they showed bare shelves in the supermarkets where
the Hostess products had been, mainly because people were rushing to stockpile
as many as they could find.
It
reminded me of 12 years ago when, thanks to a Teamsters’ strike, Twinkies no
longer were being delivered to supermarkets, so they suddenly became a hot
commodity. Boxes of them were up for
grabs for as much as $100 each on the online auctions, and people suffering
from acute Twinkie withdrawal were refinancing their houses to pay for
them.
One
guy even sold a single Twinkie for $10.
I can see it all now…there he was, sitting at the dinner table one
night, getting ready to eat the last Twinkie in the box, when suddenly he heard
a newscast on TV about the strike and how Twinkies were worth their weight in
gold. Immediately he stopped trying to tear open the wrapper with his teeth,
then turned to his wife and said, “I’m going to put this Twinkie on eBay and
make a bundle!”
To
which she probably replied, “Yeah, and if you hadn’t been such a glutton and
eaten six of them last night, maybe we could have paid our rent this
month! I want a divorce!”
I
wonder if the people who bid their life’s savings on Twinkies even considered
the fact that by the time the five-day auction ended and their package finally
was mailed to them, the dainty little sponge cakes probably were about as moist
as wall insulation.
One
TV show’s host back then even tried to demonstrate to desperate,
Twinkie-deprived people, how to bake their own Twinkies. His creations ended up looking like large
yellow shotgun shells that had been in the direct path of stampeding cattle. Hopefully,
they tasted better than they looked.
Twelve
years ago, the shortage was only temporary, so the people who stocked their
freezers with hundreds of Twinkies probably are still eating them to this
day…which, I guess is a good thing because I just checked on eBay and Twinkies
currently are selling for about the same price as a compact car.
What
kills me is just three weeks ago I bought my husband a box of some
limited-edition Twinkies that were filled with chocolate cream. He ate one,
didn’t like it and shoved the box way in the back of the cupboard. I found it a
few days ago, and seeing that the Twinkies were past their expiration date, fed
them to the birds and squirrels.
Those
birds and squirrels didn’t know it then, but the Twinkies they gulped down were
true gourmet fare, worth even more than filet mignon.
But
even though my husband is severely depressed over the impending demise of
Hostess and the legendary Twinkie, I can think of someone who probably is
dancing a jig over the news…
Little
Debbie.
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