How to stop binge-eating Ding Dongs in America
I have this problem. I keep binge eating ding dongs. I don’t want to binge eat ding dongs, in fact, I want to lose weight. But I’m gaining weight. It’s so weird.
People say I’m gaining weight because I have too many ding dongs sitting around my house. It’s true I have a lot — more ding dongs per family member than any household in the world actually. They’re everywhere: filling the pantry, stacked against my living room walls, under my bed, in my toilet. I even have a ding dong dispenser that shoots them into my mouth at rapid speed. I like having them around just in case there’s a food shortage—or worse, a recall!—and anyway it is my right to own as many ding dongs as I want.
People say the way to stop binge eating ding dongs is to just get rid of them. They tell me if I do that, my problem will mostly go away. That’s ludicrous. To them I say: Ding dongs don’t make people fat; people who eat ding dongs do. You will argue they are the most fattening food one could possibly eat. That is true. You will say ding dongs were put on this planet for one purpose only: to be eaten. Also true. But the fact is, it’s up to each individual ding dong owner to handle the ding dong responsibly — meaning, to not eat the ding dong but to simply look at it and admire it and enjoy their right to bear the ding dongs.
And don’t get me started on the wellness gurus who will inevitably chime in with their hysteria: “Oh but the children! They have no defenses against the powerful temptation of ding dongs! It’s destroying their health!” That is crazy. Children can be trained to stay away from ding dongs. I’ve actually patented my own Ding Dong Avoidance Five Point Plan to arm my own children with the tools they need to stop eating them and stay away. Has everyone in this country lost sight of the notion of personal responsibility?
If in a moment of weakness or pure insanity, a child binge eats ding dongs, it is unfortunate. They have my thoughts and prayers and I will tweet as much. I understand that in the emotional aftermath of the binge, one’s reaction might be to just purge all the ding dongs from all houses, to send them back from whence they came. But that’s no solution to the binging problem.
Because if the goal is to eliminate the harmful effects of a binge, that’s a systemic issue. It’s a confluence of mental health and stress factors and video games and rap music and television commercials featuring the ding dongs, but definitely not the ding dongs themselves. People are just so simplistic in their solutions to complex problems. As if clearing my home of the one thing that’s making me fat is the answer. Please. Did I mention that four-score and seven thousand years ago my ancestors wrote me a letter declaring my official right to keep whatever groceries I want in the house? Getting rid of ding dongs would go against the very freedoms they’ve granted me. And that’s honestly an offensive suggestion.
Disclosure: This blog post was sponsored by the Ding Dong America Freedom Caucus Lobby. The author will be a paid keynote speaker this Friday at the Ding Dong annual conference. The opinions presented above are the author’s own.
