I sit here today with a heavy heart, a fogged mind, and one hell of a headache. After barely recovering from the tragic turn of events on Election Failure Day, I am faced with yet another piece of the puzzle from Uh-mericuh—a land without liberty, a land without riches, and now…a land without Twinkies. I was not ready for yet another blow to my rather tenuous grasp on sanity, but this one really takes the cake (sorry).

Farewell Hostess. So some learned official of the Baker’s Union decided to play chicken with 18,000 jobs…and lost. All those poor saps, who probably voted for Obama, were smiling all glassy-eyed at the thought of four-more years, just as they got bitch-slapped by an I-Told-Ya-So. Let me ‘splain to you how business works. When less people buy a product, less product is needed. When less product is needed, less bakers are needed…or, the remaining bakers have to agree to a cut in hours and/or a cut in salary/benefits or something to offset the drop in business. Meanwhile, despite this drop in demand, you all gave management a hail and hearty “F-You!” (Or is it a laurel and hostess handshake?)

You all deserve it, douche bags. You took away my TWINKIES!! Now go ahead and grovel at the feet of your demi-god and ask for alms for the poor. Maybe you’ll get lucky and some, still employed, schlep will agree to get taxed more to pay for your abject stupidity.

What you ignored was this: more and more people saw the items you made it, aka, the crack cocaine of the Diabetes set. Like myself, most people had reduced their intake of the yellow cake, as it’s known on the streets, to the occasional sorrow-drowning glory-days session.

Hostess was to us just what medicinal marijuana is to the afflicted, a way to get a relatively poison-free and somewhat quality-controlled legal hit of our favorite vice. Hey, I said relatively poison free!

How many people will now have to resort to the “no name” brand of treats? Those toxic avengers of snack cakes. How many of us addicted will have to go incognito to a local bodega to try to score some Mexican brands…not knowing just what’s in ‘em. Then, after inhaling five or six packs, we’ll pass out in some filthy alley with crème all over our lips and wrappers at our feet. How many will suffer the deformities and illness caused by manufacturers from other countries putting who-knows-what into their versions of our fix? (Soylent Yellow? It’s fructose!)

The only upside? Some may use the news as a reason for investment. We all know that Twinkies last forever. They are, in fact, on the Periodic Table of the Elements, just under Uranium, next to Romano Cheese. Some of those ones in Fukushima are only now drifting onto our shores. My point is this: if one were to “purchase” a truckload of said item and hold onto it until all current supplies dwindled, one could, theoretically, cash in when one sells the items at a massive mark-up to those addicts…er, purchasers. It could make someone’s future Christmas very bright (Ho, Ho Hos Merry eBay?). I purchased 1,700 myself for just that purpose, but there’s already only a dozen or so left. The best laid plans of Crank and men.

Now, as you all sit at your kitchen tables trying to explain to your wives and families how your ability to provide for them has just flamed out like an Airbus engine ingesting a goose, you all realize, in a moment of frightening clarity, that it may be quite some time before your significant other allows you to avail yourself of the spousal benefits you have so appreciated in the past. That look that she just gave you is clear, and the ice forming around her heart will take years to thaw. And you will deserve it, you heartless bastards! You gave up a union job with guaranteed pay and benefits. You’ve reduced tens of thousands of us to late night inconvenient store runs and homemade crystal Sno-Ball labs.

When you go shopping with your children—which you WILL do, now that your wife has to work three jobs to make ends snack—just what will you say to Little Debbie when she asks, “Daddy, why can’t I get Twinkies anymore?”

You can look down at those little sad teary eyes and say, “‘Cause your Daddy’s an asshole, kid.”

Angry
Sad and angry
But mostly just angry

El Crank