April 23, 2003

Oh, the Peepery!, Part 3

3) EFFECTS OF EXCESSIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION ON THE AVIAN PEEP

Having proven conclusively that Marshmallow Peeps are both ill-suited for space travel and vulnerable to injury and death from severe blunt trauma, we moved on to our final, and most pressing question: how much alcohol can they drink?

To find out, we submerged a common Althaea gallus, or "avian" Peep, in a vessel containing approximately 180 ml of vodka, and left it for several hours to consume the solution at its leisure.

Fig. A: The test Peep after three hours. Judging from the original high-water mark, indicated by the red line, the Peep had by this point consumed roughly 60 ml of the vodka. Fig. B: Top-view shot taken at the same time. Note that nearly all of the Peep's natural pigment has bled into the vodka, dying it a sickly pinkish color.

We allowed the Peep another three hours to continue drinking, which resulted in comparatively little obvious change. Finally, after a total of six hours submerged in vodka, we decided to remove the Peep for closer observation.

Fig. C: The subject appeared extremely reluctant to leave the vodka vessel; its body became gelatinous, slippery and extremely difficult to grasp. It was not immediately clear whether this was some sort of natural defense against predators or an indication that the Peep was displaying early signs of alcohol withdrawal. Fig. D: Horribly, the Peep's eyes appeared to have somehow detached from the rest of its body during the period of alcohol exposure, coming completely off on a researcher's finger when the Peep was touched. Though some forms of alcohol have been found to cause blindness in humans, deformation on this scale has never been observed.

CONCLUSION: The grotesque effects of the vodka having become starkly clear, we chose to put the test Peep out of its misery in the most humane way possible: by immediately consuming it. In doing so, we discovered that the Peep had undergone acute physiological changes far more hideous than the simple loss of its eyes. Its body, once sweet and chewy, had become a viscous mass of utterly flavorless, frictionless ichor: a mouthful of Nothing! a soul-numbing taste of Entropy! Cackling maniacally, our lead researcher plucked out his own tongue before taking a flying leap from the balcony and landing, with a sickening crack, on the pavement two stories below.

There are, truly, some things that Man was simply not meant to know. The experiment is over, the Laboratory closed forever. May God have mercy on our poor, misguided souls.

posted by whitey at 02:01 PM

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