Just Another Day at Solipsist Central

(A follow-up to yesterday's post)

November 16, 2012

SOL (On phone): Hey, I'm heading out.  I'm going to stop by the grocery store on the way home.  We need milk and stuff. . .
WOS: OK.
SOL: Um. . . Listen, I have something to tell you.
WOS: What?
SOL: Well. . . have you seen the news today?
WOS: No.  Why?
SOL: OK. . . . Um. . . Well, maybe you'd better sit down.
WOS: What happened?!?
SOL: Well. . .OK, Hostess is going out of business. . .
WOS: Yeah, so?
SOL: So. . . Y'know. . . No more Twinkies.
WOS: WHAT?!?
SOL: I know.
WOS: No!
SOL: I'm sorry.  I know this comes as a shock, but--
WOS: No. This-- This is bad!
SOL: Well, there's nothing we can do about it.
WOS: OK, you need to go to the store and get ALL the Twinkies!!!
SOL: Well, I'm not--
WOS: Yes. You. Are.

(A few minutes later.  I get into my car.  My cell phone rings.)
SOL: Yes?
WOS: OK, here's what you do: You buy up all the Twinkies, all the Ho-Ho's, all the cupcakes.  We store them on the shelves in the pantry, then we SELL them on eBay for a fortune!
SOL: Um. . .
WOS: Pretty good, huh?
SOL: You're just gonna eat them, aren't you?
WOS: Yeah, probably.
SOL: Bye.
WOS: OK, BUT DON'T FORGET TO BUY LOTS OF--
(I hang up.)

(A few minutes later.  I am walking through the parking lot to the supermarket.  My cell phone rings.)
SOL: Hi.
WOS: Did you just try to call me?
SOL: No.
WOS: I was on the other line, and somebody called.  I thought maybe it was you.
SOL: Nope.
WOS: OK.  (Pause) So. . .
SOL: I'm NOT buying up the whole supply of Twinkies!
WOS: COME ON, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!  TWIIIIIIN-KIIEEEES!!!!
(I hang up.)

(I am walking through the store.  I am in the bread aisle.  I think we need bread. I call.)
SOL: Hey, do we need bread?
WOS: Um, yeah.  (Pause.)
SOL: (Sigh) Go ahead.
WOS: Have you gotten the Twinkies yet?
SOL: You need to let this go.
WOS: I CAN'T LET IT GO.
SOL: I'll get you some Twinkies.  As long as they haven't already been cleaned out. . .
WOS: Don't even joke!

(A few minutes later, I call home again.)
SOL: (Struggling not to laugh hysterically)  OK, you're going to think I'm kidding, but I'm not.
WOS: What?
SOL: ALL the Twinkies are gone!  All that's left are the chocolate-filled ones, and a few boxes of cupcakes!
WOS: WHAT ABOUT HO-HO'S?!?
SOL: Nope.  But here's the best part: There's a woman here whose ENTIRE SHOPPING CART is filled with Hostess products!
(WOS and I both start laughing hysterically!)
WOS: Well, wait, that's not cool!  You need to confront her!
SOL: I'm not going anywhere near her! I'm just going to consider myself lucky if I make it back to my car with the two boxes of cupcakes I've managed to snag!
WOS: Yeah, you better move fast!
SOL: This place is scarier than a Staten Island gas station!
WOS: Can we go to Target tomorrow?
SOL: Only if you acquire weapons.

Twinkie the Kid Shrugged

See what happens when you elect Democrats?  For over seventy-five years, Twinkies have expanded the waistlines and decayed the teeth of sugar-addicts the world over.  Along with cockroaches, Twinkies were presumed capable of surviving a nuclear apocalypse!  But they couldn't survive the prospect of a second Obama term.  Not one week after the President's re-election, the apparently emboldened Twinkie-making proletariat at Hostess Brands went on strike.  Unwilling to meet the workers' radical demands--presumably including frills like living wages and decent working conditions--Hostess today announced a suspension of operations.  The Twinkie, my friends, is dead!

It's not like we weren't warned.  The job creators told us what would happen if we re-elected Obama.  We all yawned when Papa John's CEO threatened to raise the price of pizza and/or reduce his workforce--mainly because we wouldn't eat his crappy pizza if he paid us.  But now, with the bigwigs at Hostess going all John Galt on us, well. . . shit just got real!

Laugh all you want, but I have seen what the future has in store.  At my college's bookstore, you know what's being sold as "snacks"?  Pickles!  Individually wrapped pickles floating in pouches filled with some kind of gelatinous brine!  Suddenly Ho-Ho's don't sound so disgusting anymore, do they?
OK, maybe they do.  I'll admit, Twinkies vs. gelatinous pouch-pickles is something of a Sophie's Choice.  But at least it WAS a choice.  We've gone from Sophie's to Hobson's!  The creeping socialism feared by so many encroaches ever-so-much further on our beloved American freedoms!  Today Twinkies, tomorrow freedom to assemble!  Or, y'know, maybe Go-gurt, who knows?