Perspective and Peeps in the time of Pandemic (In the Category of Want What You Have)

Tragic news. Coronavirus has halted the production of Easter Peeps®, the sugar-covered marshmallow cavities-in-waiting that adorn Easter baskets and trendy dinner party table centerpieces that obstruct line-of-sight conversations.

Is this a waste or a proper use of bunny-shaped Peeps? (Photo Source)

Depending on your perspective, this news is either a prayer answered or the Devil's work. In my experience, no sugary treat causes greater debate among us sweet-tooth inclined than the eternally resurrected spring candy question: Peeps — Crap or Crave-able? (Unless it's — maybe — Chocolate and Mint — Ambrosia or Trash?)

As coronavirus spreads, our world diminishes, and all the places, people and opportunities we once took for granted are made precious by their absence now. It makes me sad even though I was not going to buy any Peeps in the first place.

Don't misunderstand me; I am team Peeps all the way. Their stretchy sweet (cloying, really) presence in my childhood Easter basket is a happy, distant memory. Emphasis on the word distant. The Easter Bunny who packed my baskets would take the yellow or pink Peeps out of their large cardboard sleeve, break down the long rows of chicks (you couldn't buy three-packs back then; such nonsense did not exist), and arrange them around the basket intermingled with hand-dyed hard-boiled Easter eggs, jellybeans, foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and a hollow chocolate bunny. The plastic "grass" that lined the basket inevitably became stuck in the gooey marshmallow spot, a sort of oozing wound where the Peeps had been pulled apart. Eating the Peeps required pulling the grass off, which created marshmallow-covered strands of Easter basket grass, which stuck to my hands until I managed to spread it to the carpets of every room in the house before we had even left for church.

I hate that children might be deprived of that happy memory in their own lives.

While the article regarding the cessation of Peep hatching concludes that the Just Born Candy Company feels pretty confident that they have a sufficient stock of Easter Peeps, I cannot help but wonder if this news will trigger a panic-buying spree causing cardboard sleeves of Peeps in all sizes to disappear from store shelves, the next toilet paper of our age.

Stay At Home order or rational and healthy fear of catching COVID-19 keeping you out of the stores? No worries. The Just Born Candy Company ships from their on-line store. I confess, the chocolate pudding Bunny Peeps tempt me.

Wash your hands. Prevent the spread of sticky Easter basket grass.