I'm going to be straight with you: I am ambivalent about the 100-calorie snack-size craze that has been unleashed in this country. On one hand, 100 calories is so easy, such a nice little arbitrary building block of snacks that you can fit into any diet plan. It's easy to add. You don't have to carry any one's or do any mental gymnastics.

On the other hand, it's not like these companies have the market on 100 calories. I mean, it's the packaging equivalent of slapping your hand when you go back for another spoonful. Do we really need food manufacturers to babysit us? Ah, but what if you only like freshly opened foods? For instance, I love to death the first scoop out of a flavor-sealed jar of peanut butter, but two days later, it seems to lose that extra oomph. Maybe there are people out there who likewise enjoy the first half-hour of an open Wheat Thins box, but after that, their interest in the little weird salty sweet crackers starts to wither and die. Maybe we all just want untainted snack products? I can't fault anyone for that.

Know this: I am a fan of just about any junk food and have to remind myself that if I tried to live on Peanut Butter M&Ms alone, I would eventually contract scurvy. However, the realm of the salty crispy snack? I totally dodged a bullet there, because I could really take or leave all manner of chip or cracker, with one very specific exception: I love me some Cool Ranch Doritos and would like to stick my snout into the bag and inhale until I hit the crumby bottom. And when they released a 100-calorie pack of Cool Ranch Doritos? Problem solved. Except that the chips inside those little packs were made for Barbie dolls (if the bitch actually eats anything, that is), in that they were small. Wee. Infinitesimal. Lacking in the crunch department and completely without those delicious mutant Doritos that seem to be triple-coated with the tangy powder. Oh, Doritos that linger in Ranch of Cool, I love you most of all.

So far, not so good. In truth, I suspect that I was more offended that they had messed with the intrinsic beauty of the Cool Ranch Dorito, just because if they portioned out actual-sized chips into 100-calorie bundles, you would be left with something like 4 chips, and would the American public stand for that? No fucking way. Instead, Dr. Shrinker those little chips down to size, so that we can get fourteen wee little Munchkin Doritos in one bag and hope that no one notices. So perhaps I was a bit biased, due to my clear emotional attachment to the sanctity of the Dorito. I was willing to go round two with the enforced portion control.

Enter a 100-calorie pack of Hostess cupcakes. While I'm a fan of the Hostess cupcake, particularly the chocolate kind with the white squidgy strip of frosting on the top, they are not my lord and master like Mr. Dorito. In fact, I'm vaguely put off by their weird white filling that is neither cream nor frosting and might actually be whipped beef tallow for all I know. I went in with an open heart.

The packaging is very quick to tell you that you get three cupcakes per pack. Three cupcakes! 33 1/3 calories each, presumably! It seems like a fairy tale. Except that when I opened the box, I actually laughed out loud. These "cupcakes" were so teensy that I wonder if they weren't baked in an E-Z Bake Oven. They are about the diameter of a U.S. quarter. Tastewise, they taste exactly like a miniaturized Hostess Cupcake, complete with with weird cream filling and yummy solid strip of chocolate frosting. However, one would hope that a single cupcake would deliver at least ONE satisfying bite wherein you can fool your senses into believing you're eating something tasty. With these stingy little bastards, to call them bite-sized would be generous. Meh, I think I'd rather take two bites out of a real 180-calorie Hostess cupcake and then throw the rest away.

Also, I found a fucking flour weevil in my cupcake-lette. Box is going into the trash now. Gross. --Weetabix