Is this really what we have come to? A society so driven by greed that we would contemplate selling a box of junk food in hopes to make a profit or even have a pipe dream to score a cool $20 million?

Trust me, I get it! I love Twinkies like nobody else! I get the deliciousness of the spongy cake and the euphoria my taste buds experience from the sweet creamy filling … I just GET IT!

But I don’t get why so many people think they can score a quick few bucks by selling the American staple treats on an Internet auction instead of freezing the historic boxes and saving the sweet treats for generations to come. That’s right, freeze them and save them. Twinkies will last forever on a shelf and even longer in the freezer.

Having gone to the local grocery stores in search of just one lonely box that I had hoped got shoved clear to the back of a shelf or even misplaced near the Rice Krispie treats, I was saddened to be completely defeated in my quest to find one Hostess box.

“Go to ebay,” I heard someone say. And I remembered thinking: “Buy Twinkies on ebay? Geez, what’s next?”

But, realizing a rare moment of boredom, I logged on to ebay and went in pursuit of my beloved Twinkies. My eyes widened when I saw 4,761 Twinkies listings!

I perused those listings of the most popular no longer made Hostess products and caught myself shaking my head: $12.99 for one box? $5 for another box cleverly promoted by a cute infant who was clearly noted “not for sale.”

But as I continued to shop, the outrageousness ran deep the further I delved into the auction listings. The “buy it now” price for a lot of 50 boxes was at $625. A two-Twinkie pack had a starting bid of $300! Surely I wasn’t seeing that right, so I grabbed by reading glasses and started again.

There were three boxes selling for $44.99, but the shipping was free. Another seller from Pennsylvania is offering one box of Twinkies for a whopping “buy it now” price of $3,500! Ummmm yeah, good luck with that one!

If you’re lucky, you’ll find a box of Twinkies on the auction site for more normal prices like 99 cents, although most are in the range of $4.99 per box to $12 per box and $15.99 per box. You’ll be expected to pay anywhere from $2 to $20 for shipping.

And if you’re feeling the need to satisfy your sweet tooth and do some good at the same time, you can also pay $4,000 for one box of Twinkies being sold by The Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The listing says 10 percent of the total will go to the nonprofit club.

Want to do even more good? Bid on the $10,000 box of Twinkies that will give 25 percent of the total to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Or, get a box at the buy it now price of $20 million – yes, I said MILLION – and know that 50 percent of your purchase will go to the American Red Cross.

You can also spend $5 million and 10 percent of that will benefit the Marine’s Toys For Tots program.

Shocking as it may seem, there are actually several $1 million boxes of Twinkies now available on ebay.

What you choose to do with your money is your business, but I’m thinking I’ll just be patient and wait for the next junk food company that comes along and buys the Twinkie recipe. Sure, I won’t have the Hostess box to commemorate the end of an era, but I should likely have a product I can afford to buy, open and enjoy.