I am obsessed with Ding Dongs.

    My mom never kept cool food in the house.  No Sara Lee or Hostess, No Swiss roll ups, no Pop Tarts or Twinkies.  None of the A list snack food.  No, we reveled in knock off brands and saved 17 cents a week because of it.

    No Coke for us.  We got Cola.  Cragmont Cola.  You can't even say it without gagging:  Co lah, Co blah.  The 9 cents a can Safeway brand that also offered grape, orange and root beer, which were ok, and strawberry and cream soda, which I never saw anyone drink.  No coke, God forbid we spend the extra 3 cents a can.  

    So, Coke came to represent everything good in the world.  The red can, like the color of our nation's flag.  I praised the men who fought and died so that I might drink Coke. Not cola.  No one would even raise their voice over cola, much less fight.  Take it, enjoy.  And even though it was cool to pack a canned drink in your lunch instead of having to buy milk, it's a sad day for the 4th grader who unwraps the glistening, dewy cylinder shaped foil to reveal icy cold...Cola.

    And what else was in that lunch you might ask.  No Ding Dongs.  Star Crunch.  That's right kids, you get stale rice krispie things in carmel and some gritty chewy nougaty stuff caressed in chocolate flavored wax.  Mmmmmm....the taste of childhood.

    But Leslie Parrish had Ding Dongs.  Every day.  But she didn't appreciate them.  You know hat I saw her do time and time again...trade.  For what? Gold?  She'd take a chocolate chip cookie or two, sometimes chips, which is just wrong.  Unless you get a Twinkie or 7 Oreos for your Ding Dong, you're gyped.  And I couldn't even participate in the Lunchtime Barter Exchange because not even Leslie Parrish wants Star Crunch.  But I tried, "I'll trade ya...I'll throw in a puppy."  What I did get for my Star Crunch?  Low self esteem.

    Leslie Parrish invited me to her slumber party.  We weren't just friends because she had Ding Dongs.  She had a Moped, too.  I felt I was dining at the White House, touring the Royal Palace.   Firsthand Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous:  Champagne Wishes and Ding Dong Dreams.  I'm Barbara Walters, "Leslie, tell me, what's it like to have an endless supply of Ding Dongs?"   Needless to say I was in hog heaven, yet tortured all the same.

    I couldn't focus on the games, the giggling about boys, the frozen panties.  My mind was always on the pantry, the Ding Dongs—a 12 pack with 5 missing.  So near yet so far.  I knew the rules.  Unlike M&M's, you can't just sneak a few.  People notice missing Ding Dongs.  You have to win permission.  And you can't look too desperate.  Have to be cool.  In my pre pubescent attempt at nonchalance, I kept steering the focus toward them.

    Hey, let's play Atari.
        You know what goes great with Frogger?  ...Ding Dongs

    Hey let's order pizza.
        Yeah, I like pepperoni...and Ding Dongs...they’re both round...

    Let's play a game, who knows a good game?
        We could watch Bob Newhart.  Every time someone says "Hi Bob" we'll take a bite of Ding Dong.

    My social skills were sorely stifled by creamy filling.

    But I grew up as we all do, and I suppressed my obsession.  Inundated with dieting impulses, it never dawned on me to even buy a Ding Dong.  Then, through a series of enlightening events, I excavated my childhood love and adult fear of Hostess, and I faced it.

    I went to 7-11, bought the 2-pack.  Came home.  Poured half a tall glass of skim milk (because not all diet guilt can leave at once).  I opened the package slowly, a little disappointed there's no foil to ball.  I broke one open, smelled the creamy center, which is amazingly somehow buttery.  I dipped in the milk, I bit.  Fifteen years of fear and guilt and jealous resentment, all relieved.  I was sanctified.  Victory, it tastes a little waxy.