That's because peeps -- those marshmallow chicks that are a popular treat around Easter -- don't last long around kids.

"Once a peep is in a kid's hands it goes straight into their mouth," said Lyle, standing by the bookstore's entrance wearing a Peepfest '08 T-shirt. "You don't see many kids holding peeps."

While few of the youngsters in the crowded store had intact peeps in their hands, most of them bore telltale evidence -- pink, yellow and blue smudges around their mouths from the squishy treats.

Saturday's event at Market Street Books was devoted to "World Peeps" and was billed as a celebration of the arts through marshmallow.

According to Kathryn Henderson, the executive director of the bookstore, a customer at last year's Peepfest told her, "Congratulations, you just created a new holiday."

This year some 250 curious people attended Peepfest. The festivities lasted more than seven hours, and plenty of peeps were consumed: 76 boxes, each containing five peeps, to be exact -- you can do the math.

The holiday started with kids and adults writing and reciting peep-inspired poetry and ended with a band playing peep renditions of popular songs, including "Give Peeps a Chance," and "Peeple Are Strange." Between those performances, the number of creative peep-tastic events (and casual puns) was staggering, including skits, a costume contest, and a competition called the Peep-lympics.

One hit was a skit performed by kids from the Hat's Off theater group about the olden days, when our ancestors had to hunt peeps in the wild.

And have you heard of Peep Jousting? This is when two peeps are armed with toothpicks and placed in a microwave. When you turn the microwave on, they circle each other in an odd ritual that might be of interest to ornithologists, and as they inflate, one's toothpick lance will lower and puncture the other, rendering a victory. Because the microwave was small and the crowd was large, a Peepfest committee member watched the action carefully and gave the audience a play-by-play commentary.

Not into jousting? Maybe peep cuisine is more to your taste. The winner of the peeps cooking contest, Maria Winslow, won with grilled peeps stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in prosciutto. It was, she said, "originally a dish made with figs."

"I think it's funny to do something like fine-dining with peeps," Winslow said. "Next year I'm going to do peeps stuffed with macadamia nuts."

According to Henderson, it was no small feat to hold people's attention on Saturday.

"We were competing with Carolina playing in the ACC tournament," she said. Lyle added that they held the peep jousting competition to coincide with the basketball game as kind of a smart accident.

The casual passerby -- someone who meandered into the bookstore to, say, buy a book -- might wonder, "Why peeps?"

Well, sir, lots of reasons.

In 2003 the bookstore held a celebration to honor the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the peep, because, well, why not? The joke stuck like a melted marshmallow, and Market Street has paid tribute to the peep every year since.

This year's event was planned by a committee. It boosted attendance by 25 percent from last year's Peepfest, and this one was the first to have a theme.

"We went with World Peeps because there is nothing bad about marshmallows," said Gary Somers, one of the committee members. "You can't have any animosity towards a peep and they're all different colors and sizes."

Peepfest has become a big deal. By the end of the celebration Saturday, the organizers and volunteers were tired but still smiling.

"We would be exhausted," Somers said, "but we're just so wired on sugar."