A Perilous Situation

There is a lot of attention these days in the news about the coming Fiscal Cliff.  This refers to a host of economy dampeners that are set to take effect on January 1st.  The end of the Bush era tax cuts, a resumption of higher social security tax rates, stoppage of extended unemployment benefits, and more.  I am deeply concerned, not so much about the fiscal cliff, but another even more cataclysmic event that is on our horizon.

I am speaking about something you are probably already aware of and may think you have already come to terms with: the Twinkie Cliff.

That's right, thanks to labor issues and poor management, Hostess announced recently that they are going out of business, and that means no more Twinkies rolling off the bakery assembly line.  You may not realize it now, but there is a serious crisis coming.

We probably won't notice at first.  Most of us don't eat Twinkies every day, and there are other companies that offer similar products.  But eventually there are those among us, and you just may be one of them, who will want a Twinkie, a real honest to goodness bit of golden creme-filled heaven on earth with a little cowboy hat wearing cartoon pastry on the box, and then will come the sad realization.    The Twinkie is dead.

There are some things you just don't appreciate until they are gone.  Like Styrofoam fast food containers, and music videos on MTV.  But if the Rolling Stones, who's member's average age is greater than the average age of the Supreme Court justices (I'm not kidding) can make a come back, who's to say the Twinkie won't be resurrected by another bakery company?  I'm optimistically holding out hope for this solution.  It seems more feasible than politicians in Washington getting their collective acts together.  And I have a feeling we're going to need a lot of comfort food in the next few years.