The companies that bought Hostess face a daunting reality. People just don't buy Twinkies and Wonder Bread like they did back in the day when I was young. But soft (for a millennium), dear reader. Both products are still popular and still rolling off the shelves.
We are seeing here another case of union-busting. Owners make unreasonable demands that workers cannot accept. Bankruptcy is declared, and the "new owners" hire back the old workers with all the concessions and more. This is not good faith collective bargaining. It is despicable.
The workers at Hostess were fully aware of the depressed sales. I'm sure they would have been willing to negotiate a fair collective bargaining agreement. In this national climate, however, they never got a chance.
If the Hostess workers go back to their factories at pennies on the dollar, you should really forgo those snack cakes and Wonder Bread. What, you don't stock your pantry with such toxic waste? Me neither!
Still, we love our sweet stuff, don't we? If the Hostess workers get a fair contract, we'll need to buy Twinkies to support the cause!
How can we do that and not kill ourselves with Twinkies? Which, if you'll pardon me, are about the most unhealthy food product available to humankind.
BETTER USES FOR TWINKIES: FREE ADVICE!
1. Draft dodgers: Place those puppies end-to-end at the doors to your house to keep out the cold air.
2. Squirrels getting on your bird feeder? Put out a box of Twinkies. A cruel way to end the lives of cute furry mammals, but hey. Birds gotta eat.
3. I'll bet the cream inside those things works just like WD40. Haven't put it to the test, but for a fair labor contract, I sure will try.
4. Create a time capsule for your back yard. Put in ten boxes of Twinkies. Your descendants will wonder why they are so intelligent, if this is what you did in your time.
5. Parrot food. If you are really sick of your parrot.
6. I'll bet crumbled Twinkies would make your sidewalk less slippery in an ice storm, if you scooped out the white stuff first.
7. Target practice.
8. Keep a box or two around to prove that you can bypass bad, sugary, carb-laden food for good, healthy food like turnips. Remember to buy new boxes and throw away the old ones unopened. I don't think there's much danger that vultures will eat Twinkies -- and if they do, they're probably the only creature that could digest the damn things without bodily harm.
9. Adopt one as a pet. They're the size of gerbils and would last just as long.
10. Okay, okay, if you must do something kinky with them, well ... maybe as a massage item, but I wouldn't be keen on oral. Just me, though. If you don't swallow, then maybe.
As usual with my free advice, I'm mindful that this economy stinks. Therefore, as part of my salary and benefit givebacks, I must pay you to take this advice. Send me an invoice care of my email.
4 comments:
Kinky Twinkies -- now there's an image I won't be able to erase in my mind without bleach!
feed them to the zombies.
I was on holiday in France a couple years ago and for dessert at a restaurant, I had a light cake pastry with cream filling. It tasted like a Frenchified version of a Twinkie, and I remember thinking "THAT'S what Hostess was trying to emulate!" Too bad that they turned something French and real into something mass-produced and crap.
That said, I ate a lot of Twinkies in my school lunches when I was a kid. That was back in the day when sugary breakfast cereals were considered a good way to start the day. Also, too, in Canada Twinkies, Wonder Bread etc. will continue to be baked because a long-established company named Saputo owns the production rights. And Saputo apparently believes in making money by making actual products that people buy, instead of earning profits by financial gamesmanship. I'd bet money that its workers are unionized, too, because it's based in a country where, Stephen Harper aside, the concept that workers should be treated decently is not a foreign concept like it is in the U.S.
Good luck, Anne. You all are so eff'ed down there...
Turnips are really good mashed with herb butter.
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