2000-02-18

Peeps!

With only the nasty molasses chew remaining in my Whitman's heart-shaped box, I ventured out to the CVS during lunch to see what they had left in the way of marked-down Valentine's candy.

It's as if Valentine's Day never happened.

CVS is spooky that way. One day you're looking at a point-of-purchase rack filled with heart-shaped PEZ dispensers, the next it's full of adorable little fuzzy-wuzzy ducks and bunnies.

Easter is the most demented holiday, candy-wise, on the calendar. I mean, here it is, mid-February, the grayest and dingiest of the winter months, and to walk into a CVS (or Walgreen's, or Brook's, or what-have-you) is to plunge head-first into a gruesome array of lurid pastel confections rivalled only by Willy Wonka in terms of sheer absurdity. I think of Easter and I think of pulling iridescent strands of plastic basket grass out the vacuum cleaner rollers well into July. I think of the Easters of my childhood, when I'd be too horrified to eat my chocolate bunny, so terrified was I of its stricken candy eyes silently imploring me not to hurt it (see the Scrubbing Bubbles entry for further peeks into my disturbed and highly suggestible young mind).

Easter is just way too much sensory overload for this girl.

I do allow myself one solitary Guilty Pleasure in this, the time when we should be celebrating the Resurrection of Our Lord:

Marshmallow Peeps.

I think Marshmallow Peeps are the ultimate Pop Art. They're just so bizarre. And they've really developed an almost cult-like devotion, with different sects espousing the superiority of Peeps over Bunnies, Stale Peeps Over Fresh Peeps, Pink Bunnies Over Lavender Bunnies, and so on. Personally, I'm a Fresh Peep Purist, eschewing Bunnies of all colors, going straight for that row of little yellow Peeps. Bunnies cannot be Peeps; Bunnies do not make peeping sounds! How can you be called a Peep if you do not Peep? I mean, really now...

lisamcc at 14:19:18

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