Bittersweet

Sitting on a shelf, cozied up with my family under a fluorescent glow of lights, I thought to myself This is the life.  Sure, it was a bit crowded in the little box we lived in, which we shared with two other families (making fifteen of us in all), but we never had to worry about any of our family or friends leaving us.  We stuck together, literally.  If you’re confused right now, don’t worry.  It will all become clear soon enough.  I hope my story will help you to make a change in your…er…diet.

Most of the time, my life is sweet and care-free, but there always is the fear lurking beneath the veneer of happiness…the fear of being bought.  This fear especially rises to the surface in the spring.  Usually when one thinks of spring, he or she thinks of life and renewal, but for me spring means one thing only: Easter. 

Easter is a time of death.  The best two hopes that my kind can have in this time of death are that they won’t be bought, or they are bought and hidden in an Easter egg hunt and never found.  These two scenarios rarely happen, but they are the major two hopes that we cling to. 

The only other hope we can have is that the person who buys our package will forget about us and let us go stale, thereby sparing our lives (since humans don’t like us to be stale).  True, life after this can be a bit uncomfortable, being perpetually stiff and living a life among trash, but it’s much better than being subjected to the cruel and unusual torture that humans dish out.  I shudder just thinking about some of the things humans do to my poor, defenseless kind, especially knowing that my story contains some of these tortures.

So, one particularly bright and beautiful spring day not too long ago, my brother, my sister, my friends, and I were having a fun time making faces at and scaring the human children.  This trick didn’t work with adults because they never looked closely enough at us to notice our expressions…or maybe they did notice but would never admit that they’d seen it happen.  Well, this spring day, for the first time ever, a pair of adults did notice our faces, but this backfired on us: instead of scaring them, we amused them. 

“Ooo, look at that soft, sugary goodness!” the young woman said, her blue eyes dancing with glee and desire.  As I looked into her enormous eyes, I could see a purple sparkle reflected back at me.  “They look so delicious.  We should get some.”

The young man next to her grinned in amusement and squeezed her hand.  “Let’s pick some out then.”

“Hmmm…I don’t know.  There are so many choices…” the woman said, biting her finger in serious contemplation.

The man laughed, amused by her solemnity.  “Choose wisely, Ella.  It’s a very serious decision.”

“Oh, I know, Michael,” Ella said playfully.  “So I’m going to go with…that package right there.”

My heart sank.  Please don’t pick us, please don’t pick us…  But, alas, they had picked us.  All we could do now was accept our fate and hope for the best, but with the looks of this evil couple, we were sure to be doomed.

Fast-forward to Easter Sunday.  The couple had recently returned from church, had finished feasting on their Easter ham dinner, and were now preparing for dessert.  You’d think that on such a holy day as Easter, and especially after just getting back from church, that these people would show us mercy but no.  Dessert was to be served, on us.  Literally. 

“That was a delicious meal, dear,” said Michael.

“Thank you, honey.  I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Ella said.

“Now it’s my turn…to provide the dessert!” he said.

Sitting on the counter we shivered in our box, terrified.  We were not only going to be eaten, we were going to endure one of the worst forms of torture: the microwave.  As Michael approached us and ripped open our packaging, we said our prayers and goodbyes and held onto each other until the very last moment, when we were torn from one another’s side and popped on a plate. 

“Are you ready?” Michael asked.

“Yep!” Ella chirped, bounding over to the microwave.  “Let’s explode ’em!”

As Michael placed us in the microwave, and the horrendous finality of the door’s slam closed around us, I wept for not only myself but also for the terrible cruelty of the human race.  But when the microwave turned on, and we began to heat up and expand, even through the pain and suffering I felt an odd peace.  I knew this wasn’t goodbye forever.  I believed we’d see each other in Heaven, and I was right.  So, as we bloated and melded into one mass of sticky marshmallow goo and were shoveled into the hungry humans’ mouths, our bodies may have been consumed, but our souls lived on.

My life on Earth as a Peep had tragically ended, but my life in Peep heaven had just begun.  I hope my story has inspired you, human, to be a little more courteous of my “peep”-le, preferably steer clear from Peeps at all costs.  How about a chocolate bunny instead?