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| Box of Twinkies (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Hostess Brands, the makers of Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Wonder Bread and other such products is on its second bankruptcy and having trouble staying in business. They have threatened to shut down the company, putting 18,000 people out of work.
This has led to the Twinkie and its cousins (okay, maybe not Wonder Bread) becoming an endangered species, flying off store shelves. Some are hoarding the products, charging up to millions of bucks for them online. If the original "Law and Order" were still on TV, this sounds like an episode waiting to happen.
Twinkies and the other brands will survive, even if Hostess does not. In that event, they would likely be sold off to other companies, putting a dent into the profits of all those newfound entreprenuers. But aficionados would soon complain that the taste of a Ho Ho isn't what it used to be.
We must not forget that 18,000 jobs are at stake. Their union is locked in a struggle with Hostess over wages and benefits. If the company goes under, so do the jobs. Then who's to blame? The economy is fragile enough as it is.
Both sides have just gone through a court-ordered mediation to settle the dispute, with no progress to report. If this works, the company and all those jobs would be saved. If not, well . . . where else could you make a living wage making snack food?
Of course, anything that Hostess makes probably isn't good for you. Twinkies and Ho Hos and the others have high fat and calorie counts, making them Public Enemy Number One in America's war on obesity. But we eat them anyway, doctors and do-gooders be damned.
They say that Twinkies, with its yellow breading and creamy middle, can survive just about anything. Even a nuclear holocaust, when presumably cockroaches would be the only ones left to eat them once they figure out the plastic packaging.
Whatever happens to the Twinkie, we know one thing: Never underestimate Americans' love for junk food. Even if it kills them.
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