Peeps: I Have My Suspicions

The Peep Army...there's something wrong here.I can’t really explain it, but there it is, every year just the same. The odd sense that someone…or something…is watching me. It’s usually in Walgreens or the 5 & Dime (there’s still one of those in my neighborhood) at the time when pastel-hued crepe paper, fat bunnies, and white wicker baskets sound the impending knell of Easter Sunday. I mosey into the novelty aisle and suddenly realize that it’s awash in baby tones, floor to ceiling. And, just when I acknowledge the fear that’s working its way up my spine, I see them.

The terror is subtle and creeping, but upon recognition, its force is overwhelming.

They line the walls, shoulder to shoulder – Easter’s own candy army. They wait there, unsmiling, and stare at me with their tiny, unblinking brown eyes. Ranks and ranks, companies and battalions: yellow, pink, lavender, blue, and now grass green. Packed deep into the shelves they wait in formation, reinforcements ready. Their strange, blob-like shape ending in a peak is identical every time but I still don’t see it resembling anything remotely…chick-ish.

That’s what they’re supposed to be right? That’s why they’re called “Peeps” because baby chicks say “peep”, right? Baby chicks as a symbol of springtime and fertility and as a saccharin, kid-friendly, pastel prop on all the Macy’s ads for Easter dresses. But baby chicks are soft and trembling and cute! These things are just…wrong. Grossly unnatural, for the first thing, and their very volume each year tells me there must be something potentially dystopian or sci-fi-novel-awful about the whole thing. Didn’t the Peeps people ever see Soylent Green?

Baby Chick: normalPeeps: not normalThe Bunnies aren’t any better either. Their ranks stand ear to ear, their faces equally blank and unsmiling. I always liked a bunny, they are wise, gentle creatures; these bunnies know what they’re doing is wrong somehow, but they cannot escape whatever mind control they’re under. They want to warn us, but can’t. Both the Peeps and the Bunnies just want to get out, you see. They’re coming for us. I’ve always known it someplace deep down. I’ve always known that the moment I crack that all-too-thin cellophane, they’ll populate the Earth and eat us all in retribution.

It’s the cold, blank eyes that tell me this. Nothing with any true feeling has such empty eyes.

I suppose it’s just the inherent disappointment of it all. Who would want marshmallow when chocolate is the more appropriate traditional candy? The only thing more disappointing than a box of Peeps is a plastic egg full of pennies. It’s like getting toothpaste when you go Trick-or-Treating.

Peeps were always my Grandma’s candy/gift of choice at Easter. In later years she would write a check and slip it inside of the box of Peeps, so that when I fished it out, it was coated in a fine dusting of pale yellow candy crystals. I always tried to do this surreptitiously, so that the Peeps wouldn’t know…so they wouldn’t try to get out. Check retrieved, I could then give the box of candy to my Mom who always loved them.

...just stay in the box, thanks...Apparently there are different schools of Peep appreciation. Most people seem to like them at the peak of their freshness: soft and squishy. (My Mother goes into paroxysms of delight when she gets her teeth into a fresh Peep, for instance.) Others like their Peeps aged to a sinewy toughness, when the marshmallow has taken on too much oxygen and the sugar molecules are regrouping. To me, either way is equally awful. The fresh kind are a little easier, but the moment I actually think of putting one of those things in my mouth and chewing I want to run away screaming.

For purposes of this post, I did purchase some Peeps and force myself to get one down. They aren’t even good! The marshmallow isn’t sweet or fluffy, (or toasted to that wonderful caramel one gets around a campfire,) and the colored crystal coating tastes like plastic.

So why? If anyone loves tradition, it’s moi. But the Peeps I simply cannot fathom. I have since drowned my experimental box of Peeps down the drain, with a good dose of disposal blade action. I’ve tried to be open-minded and fair, but they’re coming for us, mark my words. When it comes to Peeps I say kill or be killed.

Comments

[Brianna]

Soylent Green is people!!!!!!!!

[Catie]

I never liked Peeps. Never. Ever. But my mom loves 'em. I do find the idea kind of gross, eating a cute little baby chick, starting with the head.

[maura]

M'ma received Peeps in the mail, as per recent tradition, from NYC-based-daughter. But eat them myself? Um, no. Notta chance.

[victoria thorne]

will never look at those little softies the same again

[WendyB]

I love the bunnies because they have no mouths and can't scream when I eat them.

[kinnes]

hilarious post! i wonder what would happen if you did try to "roast" a peep - maybe the open flame would singe some flavor into those wee creatures?!

[Mom]

Dont' be such a pill. Peeps are wonderful. You never shared that people actually do wonderful things with them.
They are yellow and mushy and all about Easter.
Mom