Goodbye little cupcake.

I remember walking home from Kilgore Heights School in my hometown and stopping along the way at a small grocery store (this was in the days before 7-11 and convenience stores.)  This place had one freezer and one small refrigerator section and two long shelves of cereal, soup bread a few canned veggies and a whole aisle of chips and snacks.

But more than anything it had Hostess Cup Cakes. And if you were lucky and got there early enough on a Friday, you could get ORANGE Hostess Cup Cakes.

Yum.  Nothing better.

I left Kilgore and went to school in Austin, raised a family, moved to California, moved back to Dallas and started a business and then happened upon a small neighborhood mom and pop shop that sold snacks and a few groceries. I looked around and they had Hostess products.  Twinkies and some kind of cakes. But no cupcakes.  I asked the man why and he said he never sold any. I told him if we would bring in one chocolate and once ORANGE I personally would buy them from him each Friday.  I told him my story. So he did. And I did And the world was great.

Then a few years ago he died. The 7-11 Corporation bought his land and built one of their 24-7 C stores on the location.  No Hostess products. No cupcakes.

I was finished. Several years went by and then I discovered that Tom Thumb of all places sold ORANGE cup cakes.  Real, honest to goodness artificially flavored, sugar hydrated PGMS-added cup cakes.

I bought one and ate it. Terrible.  They had re-formulated the secret sauce. There was even an article in the newspaper about their new recipe and how it was saving them millions of dollars. Phewy. Their product sucked.

So when people tell me it is ashamed that hostess is going out of business, I say, Nope. They screwed with the product. They deserve to die.  I will miss my ORNAGE cupcakes…but not the recent ones.  The ones from my youth.

What’s next, Apple screwing with my maps on my phone?  You never know.  No company is too big to fail.  Most are just too stupid to succeed.