my peeps.

It used to be that the day after Easter was a very exciting one for me. That's when all the candy goes on sale. And it's Easter candy, which means that it's not just chocolate kisses wrapped in colored foil. No, Easter gets its own kind of candy, egg-shaped and pastel colored. I've never been a fan of Cadbury cream eggs, though I have fond memories of those bizarre old commercials with the clucking rabbit.

So really, Easter candy is all about the Peeps, marshmallow animals covered with sparkling pink and yellow sugar. You can buy them in packs of nine or twelve, depending on whether you get bunnies or chicks. I haven't done any comparative weighing, but it seems that you get a better deal with chicks. Regardless, you can really only eat about half the pack before you get a stomachache. I'm sure there's a very good scientific explanation for this, what with all the marshmallow research going on these days, but I imagine the various chick and bunny parts swimming in the stomach and slowly swelling until you feel all full and empty at the same time. Gummy worms work on a similar principle. You feel kinda gross and think, man, I just ate a whole lot of nothingness. Then half an hour later, you happen to see the rest of the package, just sitting there, getting stale, and you forget all about any tummy ache.

It's best not to buy very many packages of half-price peeps, because you pretty much have to eat the whole package at once, or at least within an hour or so of opening them. Peeps do get stale once opened, and the delicious marshmallowy center becomes hard and unpleasant to eat. You start venturing into dangerous thought territory when you eat them, like wondering what in the world this crap is made of anyway. You're supposed to be thinking about how delicious they are, and whether you prefer chicks or bunnies, not to mention the whole question of whether to eat heads and ears first or just throw the whole thing in.

But honestly, I haven't gorged out on Peeps in years, and I realized why only yesterday. It's because of their yearlong availability. You can get Peeps on any holiday now. They have ghosts and bats and pumpkins for Halloween, hearts on Valentine's Day, snowmen for Christmas. Even the Fourth of July gets little red, white, and blue chicks. Peeps have sold out to the other holidays. They're just chemical marshmallow coated with chemical sugar that makes you feel funny if you eat them. And while that's all they ever were, at least then, they were special.