On the table in the kitchen of my office at work, there is a package of Peeps. It has been sitting there for days. It is a package of Peeps like any package of Peeps – yellow, baby chickens made out of sugar and sculpted by expert hands, colored by expert food colorizers.  The same Peeps that I remember from childhood, that I used to put in the freezer and then eat alongside my meat and potatoes.  

What happened to our love of Peeps?  Was it when they started making bunny peeps?  I think that may have had something to do with it.  A baby chick goes “peep peep” but a baby bunny goes…I don’t know how a baby bunny goes but it definitely doesn’t go “peep peep.” So perhaps the creative violation gave people a bad taste for the taste of Peeps.

More than eating them I see people making art out of Peeps. Putting the Peeps in dioramas, as if the Peeps can act out human dramas. The artwork is so good it makes me forget that you are supposed to eat Peeps.

But then I remember back to the taste of Peeps out of the freezer.  So sweet and…so cold.  And that dusty exterior like eating a frozen desert. No – the bunny Peeps, even if it was a failure – would not explain the unpopularity of Peeps.

For it wasn’t just bunnies!  There were peeps for every occasion. I remember Halloween Peeps in the shape of ghosts and coffins with “RIP” written on them. There may have been a subliminal message there. Then again, maybe not.  

No, I think the answer is a type of corporate conspiracy.  Somewhere inside the company that makes Peeps somebody decided that it would be funny to tell everyone that Peeps were bad for your teeth and your health in general, and were all around terrible things to eat, but still keep making them so we would be surrounded by creepy little chickens made of marshmallow and pure sugar. 

And at just the right moment, all of the Peeps will rise up against us, and rule over the humans, and make us manufacture miniature humans made out of sugar, and we will call them…Peeps.  Those will be the real Peeps.  Calling each other our “peeps” today is just practice for the day when we’ll make ourselves into miniature marshmallow figurines encased in dusty sugar painted yellow or whatever shade you choose, just there are different shades available for the thumbs up emoticon in text messaging. 

And people would still make art out of them, make little dioramas out of the Human Peeps – putting them in houses and yards and rock bands and dramatic revelations from soap operas. Because if you’re not going to eat them, you’ve got to do something with all these Peeps, Human or otherwise. You let them sit on the table in the kitchen at the office, just waiting for someone to get hungry enough…

…someone who didn’t eat a big enough lunch, who though that leftover matzah would be enough to get him through the day…

…someone like me.