Okay, I'm jumping on the bandwagon! I mean, how can I ignore the demise of the Twinkie, the darling of the `70s lunchbox? Those golden, round, plump little cakes...
Honestly, there are no tears shed from my eyes! I can't say I'm even the least bit sad that Hostess is being laid to rest. I'm actually a bit hostile towards Hostess. I blame it for the scourge of my life...my golden, round, plump little thighs!
You see, as I've mentioned before, my mother was of the era of "wonder products" like Wonder Bread (ever wonder how it got its name?), Cool Whip, Blue Bonnet margarine, Campbell's soup, Oscar Mayer weiners and bologna, Jell-O, Kraft Singles processed cheese, and the infamous Twinkie, Ho-Ho, Ding-Dong and Hostess Fruit Pie. Yes, she witnessed the birth of hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and preservatives. How exciting for the modern homemaker of the 50s and 60s to have bread sit in the cupboard for a week without going stale! How convenient to open a can of soup, add a can of water, heat it up and call it dinner! How lovely to scoop up a spoonful of too-white fluff and plop it onto pumpkin pie!? And how effortless to tuck a Twinkie in a kid's lunchbox for a sweet snack that showed just how much they were loved!
Yep, that was me...raised on all those delicious, nutritious food mutations. Every lunch, every day, for years I ate a processed cheese and bologna sandwich on white bread, a bag of chips, a banana and a Twinkie (or Ho-Ho, Ding-Dong or Zinger, the coconut-raspberry flavor) washed down with a thermos of Kool-Aid. It makes me cringe just to think of it!
When my mom says she's baffled by my love for healthy cooking and eating, when my husband has to sneak a Hershey almond bar every time he picks up a gallon of milk at the store, and when my kids mock me for telling them sauteed asparagus taste like candy, it's just because I am making up for all the damage those Ding-Dongs have done.
So Hostess Twinkie, I say good-bye. I wish you would have left a whole lot sooner. (And if it's really true what they say about Twinkies never decomposing in a landfill, the people who love you still can take comfort knowing that good-bye doesn't mean forever!)
You are so funny! Your last line really cracked me up. I, too, despise Twinkies. At the grocery store a couple years ago, I told my kids, "I promise that I will never, never, never buy Twinkies for you." A shopper near me giggled.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, while grocery shopping, my dearest husband and I had the following text conversation:
HE: Please buy a box of Twinkies before they're gone forever. I think the kids will like them.
ME: I told the kids I would NEVER buy Twinkies for them.
HE: The kids tell me they've never had a Twinkie.
ME: They had one once when *your* sister felt sorry for them and gave them one.
HE: They don't remember that.
ME: Good, then they won't have anything to miss when Twinkies are gone forever!