I Failed at Microwaving a Peep

Easter season is upon us, and you know what that means. PEEPS ARE BACK IN STORES!

It's no secret that everyone in the world secretly loves peeps. Just look into this peep's droopy-eyed face and try to tell it that you don't love it.

What makes them so universally adored is that, like love itself, everyone experiences and enjoys these tasty treats in different ways.

Some like to eat them and experience the eyeball-exploding sugar rush they get when they stuff four or more of these babies into their face. In fact, An annual "Peep Off" competition is held in Maryland on the first Saturday after Easter, when Peeps are greatly discounted, to see who can eat the most in 30 minutes.

Others like to keep them pristinely sealed and preserved within that cellophane and cardboard mausoleum like four more or less perfectly formed lazy-eyed Siamese-twin monuments and ponder the endless cycle of life and rebirth that the tasty goo-balls and the season they are associated with symbolize.

Some make them the subject of art.

Still others like to break that seal just a bit, wait a week until the peeps have hardened into tougher-than-granite petrified masses and hurl them at cars from an overpass.

Yup, that's actually a peep in the windshield. Amazingly, that's what a peep looks like after just one week's exposure to air, so if you plan on eating them after opening, make sure to have your dentist's number at hand.

One subset of peep lovers likes to microwave them. I don't know how this trend started, but it's apparently caught on like a combination of the macarena and Jesus.

There's even a Wiki-how online manual that walks you through microwaving one or several peeps in just 9 easy steps (click here to see the instructions, which include the crucial ninth step of looking at the peeps once you are done).

Naturally, once I learned about this, I wanted to try it. What could be more exciting and fulfilling than sticking a marshmallow in a microwave and seeing what happens? What, but side-splitting hilarity, could possibly ensue?

Not one to pass up an opportunity to realize my dreams, last Sunday (a beautiful day in Santa Barbara on which I had no work, no responsibilities and could have chosen to engage in any activity I wanted) I, a 26 year-old grown man and a lawyer, drove out of my way, by myself, to the grocery store, purchased nothing but 2 boxes of yellow Peeps, and came directly home, literally giddy with excitement at what might  happen once I stuck one of those babies in the microwave for a minute.

Having first slit the cellophane on one of the boxes so that in a week I could have something to throw at the neighborhood cats, I took out a single, beautiful, sparkling yellow chick, its side displaying its only slight imperfection at where I yanked it apart from its siblings.

I beheld this specimen, my eyes glistening with awe, my mouth confused and angry knowing that it wouldn't actually get to taste its sugary delectableness, my stomach relieved that it would not be faced with the Herculean task of digesting the blob of marshmallow, corn syrup, gelatin, and carnauba wax, and my brain already releasing massive amounts of dopamine in anticipation of what promised to be one the best moments of my life.

Naturally, I brought out my camera because I knew a joyous moment like this, not unlike witnessing your own firstborn baby's first words, was one that you want to capture and relive over and over again.
Here is the before photo I prepared.

Having chosen the perfect plate, one that would contain but not overwhelm the peep's destruction and would not clash too much with the peep's color, I put the peep on the plate. I placed the plate into the microwave. I reached out a trembling finger to set the time, having not once, but twice, to push clear and start over as I pushed the wrong buttons in my excitement.

Then I pushed start.

And this happened.

Needless to say, the image I had for what would happen far exceeded the reality, and, not unlike witnessing someone else's firstborn baby's first words, I was less than impressed and more than slightly bored. 

As you can see, obviously, there were a few problems. First of all, theres that weird stuff on the inside of a microwave window that makes it extremely hard to see anything that goes on in there unless you press your forehead up against the glass, which I couldn't do because my doctor told me to stop doing that since I was suffering headaches and intermittent visions of white light. Also, it makes it very hard to photograph anything inside there.  

Additionally, the event itself was rather lackluster. I had imagined the peep expanding to a ridiculous size, 3, maybe 4 or 8 times as big as it started, its face becoming unrecognizable as its eyes bulged hilariously in different directions and its beak merged into its chin, and the microwave barely being able to contain it.

But, in reality, it just kinda got a little bigger, and then deflated. And that was it. 

So, I spent roughly an hour of a gorgeous day spring day planning and executing what I really should have realized beforehand would be just like putting a regular marshmallow into a microwave.

And that, in case you were wondering, is how I spent my Palm Sunday.

Mikee P

PS: Check out the video below--it's the best video of someone microwaving a peep I've seen. Note that I said, "best," by which you correctly deduce there are more than one out there. Anyway, enjoy. Oh and happy Easter. Hope you have a good time however you choose to celebrate it, whether it's going to a long mass conducted entirely in Latin, eating a baker's dozen of chocolate bunnies on top of a pound of jelly beans and week-old, multicolored hardboiled eggs, or by not celebrating it at all cause you're not religious, hate candy, and are saddened by the commercialization and bastardization of yet another holiday by Hallmark, Cadbury, Honeybaked Ham, and of course, Peeps & Company.