Half Life

 My wife asked a very pointed and pertinent question: "Did you ever get that Twinkie out of your mom's refrigerator?" Backing up a half step, the genesis for this inquiry stems from a bit by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. If, Bobcat posited, Twinkies have a shelf life of twenty years, when you took a bite out of a Twinkie that was twenty years and one day old, would you say, "Ewww. This Twinkie tastes funny?" At some point, I took it upon myself to put a Twinkie in my mother's refrigerator where I figured it would be safe for two decades. 

Then I moved to California where I couldn't keep an eye on it. When at last my mother moved out of our childhood home, my older brother did me the solid of transferring all that Hostess goodness to the new place, where I was able to check in on it from time to time when I was in Colorado visiting. And somewhere in there I lost track of the time. My mother's house is currently being sold, after her passing late last year. Which is why my wife was wondering. 

The funniest version of this story would be the one in which the new owners contacted one or all of us surviving family members to ask about the golden sponge cake with creamy filling wedged in the back of the otherwise spotless fridge. This did not happen. Somewhere in all these intervening years there was a moment of common sense that pushed the commitment to the bit to the side, allowing our grand experiment to conclude without a punch line. 

I thought of that Twinkie as my son and his friend pulled out of our driveway with his first car on the back of a trailer. Hobbes, named for Calvin's tiger, was back on the road after a stay of more than two years in front of our garage. During that time, our son had dalliances with a number of different vehicles, but he was adamant about his commitment to one day return and take his beloved Supra back with him to his newly established bachelor digs. 

During the time that Hobbes sat dormant in the driveway, there were multiple attempts to get it moving on its own, if only long enough to get it someplace where it could be worked on in peace. All the while, the entrance to the garage and the sidewalk that runs between the house and the driveway were made slightly less passable by a factor of one car. Inside the garage all the attendant spare parts, wheels and interior and hoses and electrical bits, were stacked loosely in piles waiting to be freed. 

This past weekend, the truck came for the Twinkie. The relief I felt was mixed with a twinge of regret. I will miss having to scoot around Hobbes. Hobbes is part of the family, after all. Just don't ask me what the shelf life for a Toyota Supra is.