Twinkie Defense, Yes. Defense of Twinkies, No.

For the first time in decades, I ate a Twinkie yesterday. I was in the Walgreen's picking up milk, and there it was, and what Poe would have called the imp of the perverse guided my hand.

I ate the first of the matched set -- for as most of you know they come two to a package -- on the way home, and after the first couple of bites I found the taste nauseating, but sugar-freaked, I finished it.

I considered throwing the second one out the window immediately since they biodegrade, but I thought a cop might spot me, and I was in no mood for a discussion of basic biology. And with that Twinkie inside me, I might have bull-rushed him and been Tasered, or worse, on the spot.

And damn me if in a couple of minutes I didn't grab the second Twinkie and finish it off. It was nauseous -- which as all my copy editing students know means nausea-inducing -- from the first bite.

What is in those damn Twinkies? Worse, what's in me that I can't eat just one?