Please enjoy this classic post from the previous incarnation of my website, circa 2000.

“Are those Twinkies in there?”

Yes; yes, I’m afraid they are. They’ve been in there for over ten years now, I think. I have the dated receipt around here somewhere. When this picture was taken, it was closer to five or six years. But they still look pretty much the same. I mean, you can tell they’re old; you wouldn’t want to eat one. But then, a lot of people wouldn’t want to eat one even if it were fresh.

I got the lamp out of the basement of an apartment building on Highland Street, where it had been abandoned. I claimed it as my own, to furnish my first college apartment. The lamp was empty then, of course, but it was obvious we would have to put something in it. The guidelines were simple:

• It had to be relatively light, because it was sitting on a flimsy table.
• It couldn’t involve water, since it is after all an electric lamp and I didn’t feel like making the effort to do it safely.
• It couldn’t be anything that would require attention, such as an ant farm, nightcrawlers, or food, which would rot or mold or attract pests.

We got a lot of suggestions. Colored sand or marbles were popular; both would have collapsed the table. Potpourri or scarves were deemed too girly. And M&Ms or other colorful candy… well, I suspect that would have become an ant farm in very short order. Finally we put it as the outgoing message on our answering machine: What should we put in the lamp?

My friend Tom left a message later that week. “Twinkies, man, I told you. F—in’ Twinkies.” *beep*

So Tom, Tim and I went to Crosby’s and bought six boxes of Twinkies. That turned out to be way too many, so after we were done cramming them in there, we ate the ones that didn’t fit (almost two boxes). I haven’t wanted to eat a Twinkie since then.

We took it next door to the Kitchen Witch to show Becky. She just laughed and said we were crazy, which was pretty much what she said every time we said or did anything.

Then we took it next door to show Bill at the convenience store. A girl was walking out as we were walking in, and she said, “Those things are gonna mold.”

I said, “They’re not going to mold. There’s nothing in them that mold would want to eat.”

She said, “I know mold, and those things are gonna mold.”

Tom laughed out loud. “You know mold? What does that even mean?” She stormed off, but I knew I was right. They’re individually wrapped, after all, and I’m pretty sure if they haven’t grown mold by now, they aren’t going to.