On April 18th, I returned from a nine day trip to find this envelope waiting in my mailbox:
I immediately recognized the return address as that of the company that manufactures Peeps. Sensing a connection, I opened up the envelope and found this letter:
Norman Jungmann Vice President, Operations Just Born, Inc. 1300 Stefko Boulevard Bethlehem, PA 18017 Arie M. Rubenstein 900 19th Avenue South Apartment 804 Nashville TN 37212 March 21, 2002 Dear Mr. Rubenstein: Bok. Bok. Peep. Sincerely, (signature) Norman
The return address of the original looks like a single piece of adhesive paper, whereas this appears to be a printed piece of paper stuck to an adhesive strip, which is stuck to the envelope.
My address is printed identically on both envelopes. On the new one, however, it appears to have been cut with scissors from a larger sheet, whereas the original appears to be a standard mailing label.
Unlike the last envelope, this one was not metered -- it has a Chinese New Year stamp (37 cents). The postmark is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 8th.
I have absolutely no idea who sent me this.
That said, there are several issues that this raises:
- The font used for the two envelopes is identical. Without magnifying equipment, I cannot tell whether they were printed on the same printer. I will try to obtain some. Thanks to Bronwen for pointing me to this site which informed me that the font used for both the envelope and the letter is Bauer Bodoni Roman. Sadly, the Bodoni family is very common, the culprit won't get caught that easily.
- The letter is dated 'March 21, 2002' -- I assume the year was a mistake. However, if the March 21 is correct (it could be a red herring), the letter was written more than two weeks before it was mailed (April 8th). Most of my suspects are in Nashville -- this letter could have been mailed to someone in Philadelphia for re-mailing. If the year is not a mistake, I'm very, very afraid.
- Will there be more Peeps Mailings? I must solve this mystery before this gets out of hand!
Is this from the same person who sent me the original Peeps package? Could it be a Copycat Mailer?
Thanks to some dynamite detective work by Deanna and Felicia, we now know that Norman G. Jungmann really is the Executive Vice President of Operations for JustBorn, Inc. He is responsible for the company's operations, engineering, quality assurance, and purchasing departments, says this page.
They also discovered this page, which notes that Norman Jungmann, Vice President of Operations for Just Born, Inc., sits on the board of the United Way's Greater Leigh Valley chapter. This chapter, of course, is seated in Bethlehem, PA -- the home of JustBorn, Inc.
This page verifies that he is VP of Operations, though it spells his surname with only one N.
If you have any information on the origin of the Peeps Show, or even better, if you have a theory on what the hell is going on, please let me know:
codewolf writes:
Extrude marshmallow Coat with cyrstaline color Add eyes, and voila! Happy are the Peeps Comrades bonded together All looking forward Why such coherence? Because sticking together Is what good Peeps do Deftly extruded Sinuous marshmallow blorp Cunning artistryI'm floored.
Rob writes: "Any friends that were in Philly when it was sent? Perhaps the thoughts that it was a remailer are throwing you off. While using remailers is common for pranks, at the same time, someone with family there or who's taken a trip there would be rather suspect so make sure you verify this unknown. The use of a +4 postal code is likely due to that they used a directory service to get your zip code (if you type in an address on the USPS zip code finder site you are returned with a +4 zip) and simply copy and pasted it to print." None of my suspects were in Philadelphia recently. As far as I know, none of them have family there -- but possibly friends?
Andrea writes: "I wish I were behind it."
Mike writes: "Someone's plucking with you."
Andrew writes: "You're getting stalked by a marshmallow treat."
Deanna notes that the company was founded by a man named Born, and this new letter is from Jungmann -- "Young Man". Will I get another Peeps package from a Dave Teenager?