Floating Peeps

I. Love.  Peeps.  Yum!

I love the bright colors and how sugary they are.  My favorite are the traditional chicks.  They’re so cute and sparkly in their little package.  I can eat them any time.  They’re always good.  Even stale.  In fact, I kind of prefer them that way.  I leave the package open over night and in the morning I have a yummy treat.

NYDD hates peeps.  When he gets them at Easter he always gives me his.  Not a bad deal, I must say.

The first Easter after we were married we were on our way home from someplace and I said wanted to go someplace else before we went home.  NYDD was driving and asked where?  I grinned and said, “To the store so we can get some Peeps.”  He laughed, turned into our parking lot, and parked the car.  We didn’t get peeps that day.

A day or two later I happened to be at a store that sold Peeps so I bought some and ate them in the car.  Later I gave a ride to someone so I put the package on the floor of the back seat.  A few days later NYDD saw the package (yes, it was still there) and laughed.  He joked that I’d secretly bought some and tried to hide them.  We joked about it all day.

That night while I was at work he called and told me he had a secret.  I came home and found some of my bunny shaped Peeps were missing (we had more by then, of course) and I knew NYDD wouldn’t eat them so I asked what happened to them.  He just smiled and reminded me he had a secret.  He said someday I would find these Peeps and laugh.  I looked everywhere I could think of.  In the microwave.  In the sugar canister.  In the freezer.  Everywhere.  They were no where to be found.  After a few weeks I gave up.

Then, one day, over a month later, I managed to get a secret to exchange with him and he finally told me what happened to my Peeps.  We had a candle warmer with a big candle on it.  It’s the kind that melts all the wax without lighting the candle.  The bottom part was all melted but the top had about 1/4 inch of unmelted wax.  While I was at work he had broken through it and stuffed a peep inside.  Then he put the candle in cold water to make it harden again.  I’d since heated it again and the bottom and melted again.  He picked it up off the warmer to show me what he’d done.  He turned the candle over so the hardened wax was on the bottom and a little, mangled, dead marshmallow bunny Peep floated around in the melted wax.  Since it floated it was always hidden by the hardened wax on top so I never knew it was there.  I don’t think I’d ever laughed so hard in my life.  It was such a funny sight.

Now I have some pretty, perfect, yellow chick Peeps on my counter turning stale.  I just can’t bring myself to buy the bunny shaped ones again.  Even when I see them in the store I chuckle to myself.