Serious Announcement of a Serious “Pastry” Nature

(This post is not related to the holiday season or to the celebration of the birth of Christ, or to my previous post about the loss of my father, which my family and I continue to grieve and process, or to anything vaguely important. This post is of a wildly different tone, but that’s who I am. I am deeply emotional, deeply passionate, and deeply goofy. There you have it. )

I have a serious announcement. An announcement of such a serious nature that inappropriate commentary–regardless how tempting to those with humor tuned to “12 year-old-boy”–would be both unwelcome and, well, inappropriate.You have been warned.

For some unknown reason, my husband bought Hostess Ding Dongs today while at the store to pick up milk. Actually, he doesn’t need a reason. He views trips to pick up basic grocery necessities as delightful challenges to impulse shop. I digress.

This is what is important. I have long been a fan of the Hostess Ding Dong. I have certainly believed it far superior to, for instance, the pasty, sticky Hostess Cupcake, which always seemed to have a mystifyingly large fan base.The Ding Dong’s contrast of creamy filling with the thick chocolatey coating all wrapped in festive shiny foil like a present was a rare treat to be indulged with joy and nostalgia. As a child, a Hostess Ding Dong was almost always reserved as a special treat my mom packed in my lunch for field trips, definitely not included in regular school lunches or daily snacks. I would unwrap the foil and press it flat with my fingernail, enjoying the silvery mirrored surface while slowing eating the biggest pieces of coating I could pry off at a time.

Today, however, I must say that I believe I have eaten my last Hostess Ding Dong. (Please refer at this point to my earlier prohibition against inappropriate commentary.) It’s true. Not only were today’s Ding Dong’s smaller, with an inferior, thin chocolate coating, but they WERE NOT WRAPPED IN FOIL. They were in newfangled white plastic wrappers, cheap white bags that offered no celebratory shine or sparkle. Why, back in my day … whoa, grandma crankypants, easy old girl …

I am offended by the sacrilege, and yet I also feel strangely–all at once–freed from the hold the childhood treat has long held over me.

Nay, Hostess Ding Dong, you are but a plastic-y shadow of your former self, and I am free of you. Free to walk by your entirely unnatural little cakes in the store, free of the childhood wish for who you used to be. For you are no longer the treat of my youth, and today I bid you a nostalgic goodbye.

What childhood treats have you lost to days of yore? (Or am I the only one feeling like a cranky 90 year old right now?)