The Five Stages of Twinkie Grief

As you may have heard, Hostess, the maker of Twinkies (as well as Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, Snowballs, and Wonder Bread) has announced that it will liquidate. Yes, the Twinkie is on its deathbed. In order to prepare ourselves (psychologically, spiritually, gastronomically) for the post-Twinkie epoch, let us look at the five stages of grief that we’ll all (sooner or later, but inevitably) go through:

1) Denial. This is the stage that pretty much everyone is in right now. People will tell themselves, “Twinkies aren’t going anywhere”…“They last forever”…“Matter can neither be created nor destroyed," and other happy horseshit. At this stage, people might indulge more than usual, hoarding or binging on Twinkies before they are gone. People will realize how much they love Twinkies. They may begin incorporating them more into recipes, and many will gain weight as psychological “padding” between themselves and the non-Twinkie world.

2) Anger. This will happen the first time you go to buy some Twinkies and there are none. You will look for someone to blame. You may fly into a rage at the store manager. You may blame Hostess for bad labor practices. Or yourself for not buying and consuming enough Twinkies when you had the chance. Or the health cognoscenti for promoting a diet with no place for the Twinkie in it. Or Hostess, again, for creating a product so bad for you and making you love it. Or the Twinkie itself for being so delightful. Honestly, this stage hasn’t happened yet, so I don’t really know what will go down. I just don’t want to be around you when it does.

3) Bargaining. You will negotiate with God, or a higher power, for more Twinkies. You may offer to change your lifestyle, go semi-vegan, or "do everything Deepak Chopra says” if you could only have a Twinkie “once in a while.” I hate to say it, but at this point, nefarious persons will be able to take advantage of serious Twinkie addicts, for financial or sexual gain, by offering them black-market faux Twinkies. These will be completely artificial, with a weird chemical aftertaste -- nothing like the original.

4) Depression. You will begin to lose interest in food, pleasure, and life itself. Nothing but Twinkies will matter, and there won’t be any, so that will suck. Imagine a Twinkie-sized black hole in your psyche that pulls you inside. (I’m scaring myself now!) You will spend a lot of time alone crying and trying to lick cream filling out of things that have none. In this stage, it's best to let the bereaved be, and not try to raise their spirits. They will be detaching from their beloved Twinkies -- a necessary step. Plus you don’t want to get licked and cried on. But, then, you will probably be crying and licking stuff too. This stage will be very depressing.

5) Acceptance. Evidence suggests this may never happen.

But who knows? It’s hard to see beyond the paradigm shift that will occur after the last Twinkie is eaten. Maybe some new confection will come into being to take its place. Obviously, I’m still in Denial.