No one will argue that 2020 hasn’t been a tough year, with the COVID-19 death toll mounting daily, police brutality toward black people causing massive demonstrations, and a president who seems oblivious to it all, high unemployment, worsening environmental disasters, the loss of a Supreme Court judge weeks before a national election, etc., etc…. I’m not about to say that the aforementioned aren’t in any way major depressors for the average member of the human species, because they are; they seem to be happening all at once or at least in very short order. But there is a worldwide catastrophe that has been mostly ignored, relegated to a barely noticeable position in one of those etc.s I listed above: There will be no Peeps® for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other holiday, except Easter.
When I first noticed it as a throwaway news story, I was aghast. How can this be? The news media avoided any further comment, possibly to avoid a panic, but I’m convinced it has to do with global warming and its effect on the marshmallow population. Marshmallows have been around for eons, since the first ones crawled out of the Paleozoic slime. Marshmallows outlasted the dinosaurs, but just barely. When the giant meteor crashed into the Earth causing the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, spewing flames and burning rock high into the atmosphere, the majority of the marshmallows were turned into marshmallow fluff. A small number managed to survive and, during the Cenozoic Era (the Age of Mammals), while the Earth was cooling and small furry creatures evolved into higher life forms, one branch on the marshmallow family tree evolved into Peeps, while others branches evolved into politicians.
Archaeologists have found crude images of Peeps in some of the earliest Neanderthal cave paintings in Spain’s Maltravieso cave, mummified in the tomb of King Tut Ankh Amun in Egypt, and in the remains of Viking settlements in northern Newfoundland. Peeps flourished through the centuries. Mushes (that’s the proper name for large groups of Peeps) numbering in the millions could be seen jerkily (they have no feet so the just have to grunt and push themselves along the ground on their stomachs) making their way across the great plains of America. As easy targets, Peep hunters slaughtered them in droves, purely for sport, maybe taking the best to be used as adornments in the elaborate hats of 19th Century women, and leaving the rest to melt in the sun. Native Americans were appalled at the wanton destruction, because Peeps were integral to their existence. Peeps were flattened and stretched to make teepees and sticky horse blankets; their colorful sugar crystals were pieced into jewelry; and stale Peeps were sharpened into deadly arrowheads.
Peeps were saved from extinction by concerned Victorian conservationists, who labeled themselves as Peeple. These Peeple people formed an organization called Peeple Upset w/Killing Elephants (P.U.K.E.). They thought it would get them more attention, because no one seemed concerned about killing Peeps. Although this brought them their desired recognition, it was in the form of ridicule. But finally, around the middle of the 20th Century, after thousands of years during which they were on the brink of extinction several times, it dawned on someone (debates are ongoing as to who it was) that maybe people, including Peeple people, should be eating Peeps rather than doing whatever else it was we were doing with them.
Somewhere along their line (possibly the receding hair line), rogue scientists altered the genetic code of laboratory Peeps and the species once again branched out, evolving into different forms such as rabbits, jack-o-lanterns, and the ever-popular Druids.
But today, in the midst of the pandemic, those mutated Peeps, just like the human Neanderthals, have reached the end of their evolutionary branch. Only the original Peeps will survive and only for Easter. Perhaps one day a new group of Peeple scientists will be able to extract DNA from some of the fossilized remains of these later Peep forms and bring them back into existence.
One can only hope.