The last Hostess Twinkies shipped from a Georgia baking facility to Chicago-area stores last week. The spongy, cream-filled creations have caused a consumer frenzy in the past few weeks nationwide. Hostess cupcakes and Ho-Hos are also on the chopping block. Someone, I hope, is picking up Ding Dongs in the bakery goods product line.
I am saddened by this news. Not only is this the end of an icon; it’s the end of a time when things were simpler and full of preservatives and we lived life with reckless abandon.
Sure, the obesity rate has skyrocketed and heart disease is at an all-time high, but why are we blaming sugar-laced concoctions and large soda pops for the downturn in American society? Well, it appears to me there are bigger, more sinister culprits most likely running amok on your family’s Christmas list. You know — video games, large-screen televisions and recliners. Our hatred should not be aimed at junk food. It should be pointed with laser-beam accuracy at our lackadaisical lifestyle.
Just one Twinkie and a glass of milk will not hurt you. “Everything in moderation,†my mother told me. That’s a good rule.
Someone, most likely the Chinese, will pick up these popular products. You may see this move as a sly, sinister effort to further attach their tentacles onto our backsides. I don’t. They know how to produce and package goods. And, well, at a 15-cents-per-hour wage scale, they will beat the bejesus out of the union salaries.
Now, if you think Santa Claus got his poundage by pounding Hostess products, you are probably right. After all, they are called Ho Hos.