Team Edward or Team Jacob. Team Obama or Team Romney. Life is full of choices, and today... I've never been so conflicted.
When news broke that Hostess will shut its cream-filled doors forever, I wasn't sure what to feel. On the one hand, I panicked. "O, the humanity!" I thought. "My 13-month-old will grow up never knowing the wonders of Wonderbread! The holiness of Ho Hos! AND GOOD GOD, NO TWINKIES?!" After all, it's the stuff I grew up on. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the brand's history to favor the orange cupcakes. I have fond childhood memories of my brother and I using Muppets water glasses (from a Happy Meal, of course) to cut out "bread circles" of Wonderbread at dinnertime, thus elevating the boring old white slices into something -- dare I say -- totally elegant.
And now... they're gone. Or they will be. Whatever.
I say whatever, because the other side of me is jumping for joy with a jump rope, Michelle Obama-style. After all, isn't this stuff the Devil's snack food that health experts have warned us for years now not to eat? Processed flour, too much sugar, hydrogenated oils? So maybe, shouldn't we all see this as a victory for the suffering health of our children?
And therein lies the problem. Parents, we don't know what to feel. We want to give our kids the nostalgically happy Ding-Dongy-iest, McNuggety-ist childhood we all remember with such fondness, but we're torn. I felt like a criminal when I snuck my daughter 1/100th of a fun-sized candy bar under the cover of night on Halloween. In public, I give her organic vegetables and talk loudly about the big batch of squash I steamed and pureed that morning. But at home, my husband and I think it's pretty darn cute the way her eyes light up when she eats nougat.
So what's it gonna be, America? Should we celebrate, or mourn? What do you think? And really, does it matter? Because we all know that the Twinkie I will go out and buy for her today (if the snack hoarders haven't hoarded them all already) will be perfectly safe to eat on her wedding day. In approximately twenty-five to fifty-five years.
Read more from Liz Kozak at poseypieproductions.com .