Not every editing job goes smoothly. Occasionally, I find that I think I did an outstanding job only to hear from the client about the problems the client discovered. Of course, I always fix my errors at no charge, so that is not a problem, but I have several times defended my lapse by saying I must have eaten one Twinkie too many while editing the book.
Now I can no longer claim the Twinkie defense with the end of Twinkie production as a result of Hostess Baking going out of business.
For younger editors, I suspect that Twinkies are an unknown quantity. They are simply angel food cake wrapped around a creme filling that is loaded with sugar. Twinkies are the original sugar high for baby boomers. Like most “miscreants” I simply grasped at any defense as a way to justify my actions (in this case, lack of doing what the client expected), and so it was the Twinkie defense.
It is well known that sugar highs cause people to do strange, weird things. What could be weirder than a topnotch editor like myself missing what should have been an obvious error? Alas, I will now have to own up, I’ll have to confess to misjudgment. Definitely not a good thing to do.
At the same time, I will cry over my grandchildren not being able to defend their misbehavior using the Twinkie defense. I was already prepping my granddaughter by whispering, when her parents’ backs were turned, “Twinkie, Twinkie” — and if caught, I could easily respond that I was saying “twinkle, twinkle” as in “twinkle, twinkle, little star.” But no more. Now my grandchildren will be defenseless and have to face the dire consequences without a good defense.
The Twinkie was the ideal vehicle for excessive sugar ingestion. The Twinkie defense was also the best defense against a lot of misdeeds. Alas, the time has come to say a final goodbye to Twinkies and my Twinkie defense —
Goodbye!
An American Editor 