It is time to help Save the Twinkie

Who knew a tiny package of golden sponge cake could evoke such wrath?

“You got the wrong place, man!” yelled the muscular man in a gray T-shirt.

Fortunately for my health, the front counter of Gold’s Gym provided a wide protective barrier between Mr. Bicep and yours truly.

Gads. You’d think I slipped rat poison in his protein shake. All I did was offer him free samples of those cream-filled goodies.

Twinkies.

I spent much of last Friday as a junk food missionary. I gave away Twinkies hoping to rekindle society’s love for a snack that has fallen prey to these anti-carb times.

Interstate Bakeries Corp. – makers of such edible icons as Twinkies and Wonder Bread – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.

What’s next?

Will Little Debbie need rehab for anorexia?

News reports suggest that the parent company of Hostess won’t give up the goo. The bankrupt bakers vow to reorganize and keep the nation’s markets stocked with all those beloved labels of Baby Boomer youth.

But I’m not optimistic.

Sugar Jets was my favorite cereal as a kid.

Where the hell is it now?

If this obsession with fitness and Atkins dieting baloney continues, we could see our treats dropping like dominoes. One day Twinkies will disappear. Then Ho Ho’s. Then Suzie Q’s. Then Snow Balls…

Take me, Lord. I don’t want to live in a Ding Dongless world.

It’s time to fight back. But first I had to get my editors to give me a $50 grubstake.

I figured there’d be more resistance, but I guess I had history on my side. The newspaper had previously paid for me to smoke Cuban cigars and to get a green trailer tattooed on my right shoulder. Compared to those extravagances, splurging 50 bucks on Twinkies seems as reasonable as a United Way donation.

Rosauer’s grocery had a terrific Twinkie sale going.

The $50 bought me 250 individually wrapped, 1.5-ounce cakes.

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 37,500 calories, 50,000 milligrams of sodium and 1,250 grams of fat.

As my encounter at Gold’s on the South Hill demonstrated, however, giving Twinkies away is no cakewalk.

“They last for 50 years,” said Gary Mann when I offered him a Twinkie in a Gonzaga area parking lot. “That can’t be good.”

We need to stop the Twinkie bias.

This is a snack food, people. This isn’t Dorian Gray.

Although the Twinkie will soon celebrate its 75th birthday, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that 75-year-old Twinkies will be served.

Sure, there may be a few Twinkies left over from the Carter administration. But this everlasting Twinkie thing is a myth.

To find out where the political parties stand, I took my campaign to the Spokane headquarters for both the Republicans and the Democrats.

When it comes to Twinkies, the GOP has my vote.

“I think we’re all in favor of Twinkies,” said Republican Scott Munro, who proved his love by gobbling one. I gave him a couple of boxes, which he set out for volunteer workers who were due into the Riverside office later in the day.

I couldn’t get anyone to eat a Twinkie at the Democratic headquarters on Hamilton. One can only imagine what they did with the boxes I left them.

Even more troubling was that no party officials would discuss the Twinkie situation on the record. In fact, the woman who appeared to be in charge said they were under orders not to talk to the media – even about Twinkies.

She gave me the name of West Side party communications flack. I threw it away.

I know a cover-up when I smell one. Years of journalistic fabrication and watching Dan Rather leads me to conclude that this Democratic stonewalling has something to do with John Kerry being loaded on Twinkies during the Vietnam War.

Hey, it makes as much sense as all that swift boat malarkey.

Wake up, America. Save the Twinkies!

I’m Columnist Doug Clark, and I approved this message.