Y'all, there's a snack emergency in America!

Hostess Brands, Inc., the makers of such quintessential childhood snacks as Twinkies, Ho Hos, Suzy Qs and those bright pink, texturally questionable Sno Balls, is in trouble. For the second time in three years, Hostess is preparing to declare bankruptcy.

How could this have happened to our favorite lunchtime snack-maker? With all the unbelievable joy they have brought us over the years — first as tiny obese children and then as much larger obese adults — how could America allow such a betrayal? How can we just sit back on our expanding asses and allow this snacking travesty to occur?

I, for one, blame the exercise industry. This health nut-jogging-yoga-pilates-CrossFit-anorexia-ThighMaster-TaeBo society we're now wallowing in has completely undermined what this once-great country was originally built upon: Individually wrapped snack cakes with silly names made of harmful materials that don't ever biodegrade!

Now is the time to stand up against the Man and start defending the Kid. Twinkie the Kid, that is. That kind, grinning spongy fella that always gave you a wink and a thumbs up from your lunch box back in second grade. That cowboy of cake who let you know that cream filling was not too far away in your future.

Can you imagine a future where those strange, hard-on-the-outside, goopy-on-the-inside Hostess fruit pies won't be available at 7-Eleven? Or where the Sno Balls (aka "the marshmallow snacks that feel like boobs") don't show up in different colors at the holidays? Or without those swirly frosting-topped cupcakes that always left a grease stain on the paper in which they were wrapped?

This is your fault, veganism. I blame you, Jillian Michaels.

(Well, really, I blame the crushing $860 million of debt Hostess accrued over the past year.) But, still. We could have been eating more Ding Dongs. After years of neglect, we only have ourselves to blame.

So go out today and say hello to one of your childhood friends. Pop all five of those strange frosting-covered Donettes into your mouth at once and say, "I'm so sorry, Hostess. I turned my back on you. Goodbye." See how that feels. Maybe if we all did this in unison, we could beat this health food epidemic that is literally starving us of joy and killing our man-made history of comfort food.

Hostess is America. Are you ready to say goodbye to it? Think about that.

As for me and my house, we will be stockpiling all the Twinkies. 'Cause you never know when the zombie apocalypse is gonna hit, and all you're going to want is a sweet, cream-filled treat with your friend — all of our friend, really — Twinkie the Kid, giving you that old familiar thumb's up.