For Whom the Ding Dong Tolls

My daddy was a preacher, so we could not afford Ding Dongs until I was in high school. 

If we had a sweet, it was one of my mom's homemade soft molasses cookies, best dipped
in cold milk.  So, the cost per treat serving was 2 cents for homemade, instead of 7 cents for
Hostess.  You multiply that by 6 people and then by how many days in the month and the savings was needed.

Or, maybe my mom knew before others it was healthier to prevent preservative baths.

In high school, our "popular with boys" neighbor was named Jodie.  When she broke up with a boyfriend or worse yet a boyfriend broke up with her, she would buy and eat a box of Ding Dongs all in one day.  Rumor had it that Jodie even licked the frosting off each little white cardboard inside the packaging.  

I witnessed this whole phenomena once in person.  I had never seen anything like it.  My sister had described it to me, but I did not truly believe her until I saw it for myself.

When Mark broke up with Jodie in the spring of her junior year, I tagged along when my sister paid Jodie a sympathy visit after school. She handed my sister and me a Ding Dong in between wet sobs.  I was 14 and it was my first one.  It's hard to enjoy your first Ding Dong when your "Hostess" is sobbing and you are supposed to be expressing as much hated for Mark as she was consumed with right then. 

Later in life I learned a cute birthday cake craft that did not require sewing or knitting, which qualified me to participate.  At our daughters' (Melissa, Megan, and MacKenzie) birthday party sleepovers through the years, each girl would decorate a Twinkie.  The Twinkies were supposed to be a small replica of an individual sleeping bag.  Each girl would put theirs on top of the birthday cake and then I would cover all of them except their "heads" with frosting for the blanket. 

I was looking forward to carrying on the Twinkie birthday cake craft tradition with future granddaughters, also.  But, who knows maybe the grandkids will be gluten-free so all is not lost.


Due to the announcement that Hostess is closing down its manufacturing plants forever, I was in line behind a woman buying bag after bag of Hostess products at the grocer's today.  She said she was going to freeze them to last her for a year.  I have a feeling she went home; relived her whole childhood in one day; and is passed out in a sugar coma tonight.

My second stop on my errand run today was the pharmacy.  The space was completely empty where Hostess products were housed only yesterday.  It reminded me of the milk, juice, and bread counters that were laid bare just before the big Chicago Blizzard of 2011.

Even if you have not purchased a Twinkie for twemty years, clearly something has died this week.
The Ding Dongs and Ring Dings are ringing for the last time because we did not pay the toll.