First we had the woman who figured her thighs would make a nice cup holder for a scalding hot cup of coffee. Then came the tobacco lawsuits. In between were thousands of claimants demanding billions of dollars for irreversible, crippling, emotional trauma after suffering from a hang nail or bad dog grooming.
Never one to be left out of the fun, I've designed my own silly lawsuit. I'm going to consume massive quantities of Twinkies and Ho Ho's. Then I'm going to sue Hostess for billions of dollars. After all, they knew those Twinkies and Ho Ho's would make me fat, yet they continued to produce, market and sell them.
Furthermore, they produced, marketed and sold them to millions of housewives in the 1960s and '70s who in turn fed them to their children. Children like me and other poochy tummied Bus Stop Mommies across America.
Deemed the “Mother of All Snacks” during my childhood, I can still see the Ho Ho's and Twinkies in the kitchen cabinet. My mom added an almost sacred aura around those white boxes by keeping them separate from the other mundane snacks like raisins and pretzel rods. If I opened the corner cabinet that housed casserole dishes, mom knew I was contemplating consuming a cream filled creation typically reserved for the illustrious brown bag lunch.
Experts now know that during the formative years, children's bodies develop fat cells. These fat cells never go away, but expand or shrink according to later eating habits. Whether or not Hostess knew this fact back when they coerced my mother to buy their cellophane sealed rolls of pudge is irrelevant. This is a silly lawsuit, remember? It needn't be logical.
I will ascertain that Hostess formulated their Ho Ho and Twinkie recipes with a secret addictive agent that remained in my fat cells throughout adulthood. The agent was triggered upon the birth of my own children and reached the shopping cells in my brain the day I packed my kids' first school lunch. Now the vicious cycle will start all over again and my children will be doomed to lives of Hostess snack cake addiction. So you see, it is for them and all future generations of children that I must take action against the evil empire that is Hostess.
Flipping through an issue of People magazine, I learned I'm not alone in my reasoning. A girl is suing McDonalds for making her fat. I don't know about you, but in all my years of standing in line for a Happy Meal, I never once saw an employee hand out free fries or threaten a customer to “Get it Super Sized or else!”
But hey, why should she be held accountable for her own actions when she can legally peg it on someone else? Now where did I hide those Twinkies?
Karen Rinehart is a magazine humor columnist, public speaker and the creator of The Bus Stop Mommies, a newspaper. She is also author of Invisible Underwear, Bus Stop Mommies and Other Things True To Life. You can read more of her work at karenrinehart.net. Karen lives in Concord, North Carolina with her two kids, one husband and goofball dog, where they attend St. James Catholic Church. (Well, they leave the dog at home.) She enjoys hearing from readers across the States and as far away as Australia, Japan and England.
