“Death and taxes” — the cynic’s answer to the question of worldly certainty. Sure, there are things we’d like to believe we can count on. We never assumed we’d have to say goodbye to Law & Order. Nobody could have foreseen that our solar system would lose a planet — a moon or two, sure, but never an entire planet. And what sage soothsayer could have predicted the latest loss to hit American society: the bankruptcy of Hostess Twinkies?
The Huffington Post has announced that the dessert corporation is in the process of seeking liquidation, rendering the world’s future sans the one thing we thought would be around forever… quite literally.
One of the proudest achievements of the cream-filled sponge substitute was its ability to persevere through any sort of environmental trauma. The roaches of snack foods, Twinkies were thought to long outlast the human race, providing a sustained source of nourishment (in the loosest sense of the word) long after our society would be forced to face a treacherous apocalyptic nightmare.
Popular culture has branded Twinkies with this attribute time and time over. The 1999 episode of Family Guy, parodying the timely fears of an imminent global destruction at the hands of whatever Y2K was (a robot attack? It’s hard to remember, I pretty much ignored anything that didn’t have to do with Pokémon back then), placed its starring family amid a desolate United States, seeking salvation on the open road. Eventually, the Griffins happened upon a Massachusetts Twinkie factory, which provided their ultimate salvation.
A more recent example to depict with reverence human salvation at the hand of the Twinkies is the 2010 horror-comedy Zombieland. Long after an outbreak leaves America ravaged by flesh-eating monsters, an unnamed renegade gunslinger (Woody Harrelson) roams the highways, perpetually seeking out his favorite mass-produced pastry, reveling ecstatically when he happens upon a whole store full of ‘em towards the end of the movie.
But now that Twinkies will be no more, our society seems especially doomed. The projected end of the world as we know it (stop humming) is scheduled for next month — exactly five weeks away, at this point — meaning we don’t even have time to adequately prepare for this devastating news. Most of us have approached this oncoming armageddon with a cavalier attitude, shrugging off any fates that might befall us. “How bad can it be?” we’d smirk. “We’ll have Twinkies!” But our fears are hiked. Superstorms, Snooki babies, Scary Movie 5s… doom is inescapable. And now, one more thing we thought we could count on has betrayed us.
So in what worthy phenomenon can we invest our faiths now? What, in the face of a nuclear winter, deadly pandemic, or alien invasion, do we know for sure won’t leave us hanging? Here are a few possibilities:Tyler Perry movies
Stephen King books
Mets losses
Donald Trump public embarrassments
Amanda Bynes traffic violations
James Franco outsider art projects that nobody’s asking for
People accidentally spoiling Homeland for you
Apple updates
Ryan Gosling memes
Justin Timberlake’s refusal to get back into music
Episodes of Modern Family wherein Cam and Mitchell are fighting the whole time over something like who’s the better driver, or whatever
Christopher Lee
Party Down movie rumors
Shows attempting to be “the new Lost“So, we’ve got a few things to hang our hat on. But is it enough? Does this Twinkie news shake you to the core to the point of robbing you of any sort of faith? Can we, as a society, go on without the cream-filled treat that has partnered with us through thick and thin? We have five weeks to find out.
[Photo Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images]
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