Brother, can you lend me a Twinkie?

      All I wanted to do is lose some weight. I didn’t mean for people to lose their jobs over it. What? You haven’t heard the dreadful news? On Wednesday, September 29, 2004, Interstate Bakeries Corporation declared bankruptcy. IBC makes Hostess Twinkies, which used to be two of my four major food groups. I knew that I consumed a lot of those fluffy cream-filled delights, but I didn’t know a whole corporation depended on me.
      I should have. After all, the phone company does. No, really, they do depend on me. If I get a few days behind on my bill, they immediately write me a letter. It’s a nice letter, pleasant and not demanding at all. They just want to know when I can send payment. You can tell they’re worried about how they’re going to feed their children and take care of their aged parents. I understand that and try to send them money as soon as I can.
      Now the electric company is different. They have a different tone in their voice when they call me. It’s like they’re demanding payment. “Pay us or we’ll cut off your electricity!” they say. Like I don’t already siphon off my neighbors’ lines for my various projects. Still, I send them a few dollars every now and then. It keeps them happy and also stops them from sending out Guido and Frederick to break my knees. The electric company is one tough crowd. More of their personnel have served time in prison than people in any other utility as shown by national statistics. Actually I just made that up. You’re gullible, aren’t you?
      I pay the water department on time. I’m a great believer in water and think there should be more of it. Particularly in deserts. This will probably surprise you, but deserts don’t have enough water. With water, they wouldn’t be deserts! I know, I know, it’s surprising that no one has figured that out before. I have a mind like a rusted steel trap. So I fully and completely support water. Vote Water 2004! Besides, I’ve yet to be able to tap into a water line undetected. They keep good track of that precious fluid.
      I don’t know what I’m going to do about IBC. I can’t go back to buying Twinkies like I did before. I was mainlining them straight into my gut and then onto my behind. I should have just glued them to my thighs. That’s where they ended up anyway. I could turn a corner, and it would be a good five minutes before the rest of me caught up. Twinkie the Kid, their animated mascot, actually weighs 500 pounds and has to be hoisted to the television studio by crane.
      But who can blame him? Never have preservatives, sugar and other chemicals tasted so good. Most dessert cake scholars believe that Homer (the Greek guy, not the Simpson) was talking about Twinkies when he spoke of ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
      Of course, Homer was making the whole thing up. He lied all the time (he was in politics) but I built a good case once that manna in the Bible was actually Twinkies. Soon after that, I lost my Sunday school class. No, I mean I lost them. I took them on a field trip to the Wilderness Center, and somehow I misplaced them. I hope they come home soon. The church would like the bus and its driver returned.
      Truly you have to wonder what IBC was thinking to base their whole financial structure on me. It sounds like they graduated from the Enron School of Business Executives. They had to know that someday I might give up Twinkies for something less harmful like fried lard.
      So I guess all I can do is apologize to the employees and hope their marketing department finds someone else to carry the burden. Or maybe they could do some research and develop a salad that tastes as good as a Twinkie but still be non-fattening. Now, there’s an idea that would change the world.

© 2004. All rights reserved.