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| See? I am so truthful. |
Wow, what a GOOD MOM I must be, right? My kid doesn’t even KNOW what a Twinkie is! Oh, the Maternal Awesomeness, right?
No. I am cheap.
Twinkies are flipping expensive, like $3.59 for 8 cakes that my firstborn son could polish off in about 4 seconds, which would then allow time for him to run for his life before I fully process what he has done (just like the time I found the EMPTY box of Girl Scout Samoa cookies in his room. A jury would acquit me, I am sure…)
So I never buy Twinkies unless I need something cylindrical for a kid cake (we had funny Larry the Cucumbers once made out of Twinkies. So cute, and a boon for the cake-decorating-challenged). They are just too darn expensive.
Soooo—if I don’t eat Twinkies (or the little choco cupcakes with the white squiggle, or fruit pies, or the Yule log ones –yodels? Hohos? Or is that the wrong brand version?—or Devil Dogs (ok, THOSE are nasty))…if I don’t eat them, why do I care?
I am cheap, admittedly, but I am also relentlessly nostalgic. I think the more smote my life has become, the more I cherish those happy things from a long time ago.
When I was a kid, my dad used to buy us the Hostess Snowballs every so often when we were out running errands with him. My children quickly learned the important life lesson that my siblings and I all learned years ago: running errands of any kind with Grandpa (or dad, for me) equals treat of some kind. And I distinctly remember getting those marshmallow/coconut Snowball cakes with my dad. I don’t even LIKE marshmallow anymore (yuck), but I loved that treat, that part of time with my dad, that tantalizing sense of you were getting a treat that mom would NEVER say yes to (my mom is a hard core frugalista, and when I was young she was in a wheat germ cookies kind of season for a while). Snowballs (and sometimes fruit pies) were a forbidden fruit that Dad said yes to, without any begging, he would just OFFER IT FREELY! Woo!
Hostess treats were one way our dad showed us he loved us. And we knew it.
And in college, when I had zero dollars at any given time, and often tried to ease my anxiety by not eating ever quite enough (bad choice, I know that now), I knew for under a buck I could get a Hostess apple fruit pie at the little convenience store on campus, and joy would be mine.
When a neighbor was diagnosed with cancer, we brought over melons and other fruit for her…and a box of Twinkies for her spouse, who was wracked with worry and the pressure of care-giving…and who loved Twinkies. They were medicine for HIM.
And yes, I made my second born some Larry the Cucumber Twinkies for a birthday several years back, likely before our world got smote…I don’t quite remember.
About a month ago our supermarket had Hostess stuff on sale (should I have been worried then? Maybe). I saw those fruit pies, a lovely 8 pack for $1.88 . HOW COULD I REFUSE?? 50% off! So I didn’t. I bought them for myself, and I hoarded them, and ate them when I was having a really bad day (I paced myself, otherwise they would have been gone in a week), and I just enjoyed Every. Last. Bite.
Finally I got down to the last one, and I ate one pie in the pack and planned to share the last one with my youngest, to introduce her to that special kind of “sharing mom’s secret treat” moment…but then she took too long putting shoes away or something, and I ate the last one.
Yeah, aren’t you glad you didn’t slap that Good Mom gold star on me back in the early paragraphs?
It was delicious. I don’t even really feel that guilty. You can give me the mangy Bad Mom ill-fitting t-shirt. It’s ok, I have a bunch already, it will fit right in.
But I do regret that I won’t be able to share that moment with my youngest. I know, I can create it with another treat or something, but treats with history mean more somehow, they are like Legacy Treats. You can’t create this kind of memory over a kale smoothie or a vitamin (heck, my only vitamin memory with my kids involved a series of panic-stricken calls to poison control. But that’s another post). I know, I fully acknowledge that this is silly and superficial and really I should be reading my children the classics and crafting celery boats for snack while listening to Mozart…
But nothing quite beats the delectable satisfaction of the occasional special treat that you know is purely a TREAT, not a life choice. Twinkies and the pantheon of Hostess Cakes have always been one of those things for me….
And you know, I never did get to make that Twinkie sushi recipe in my Twinkies Cookbook. Dang. Wonder how the prices on Ebay are today?
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