Come fly with meep!

It would be hard to overstate how much I'm enjoying the meep story out of Danvers, Mass. This is of course the incident in which the Danvers High School principal banned the use of the word "meep" (such that it is) because students were using it in a disruptive fashion. He did this via a recorded message to parents, although it's unclear whether he actually uttered the word "meep" on the recording, and if so, whether he did it in a squeaky, high-pitched fashion that might lead you to believe he was about to be humorously electrocuted.

I'm of course using Beaker, the meep-uttering lab assistant from the Muppets, as my reference point for the origin of the meep craze, since I grew up with the Muppets and still, to this day, probably relate to them a little too arduously for it to be healthy. But as Wicked Local Danvers so expertly reported, there could be any number of origins, including but not limited to:

• The Road Runner ("Meep! Meep!" Although I think that was, technically, a "Beep! Beep!");
• A "Dr. Who" character;
• A "dull, waste of life," according to the Urban Dictionary.

Also, the Geekdad blog suggests that it could have come from the character "Meap" from the Disney Channel show "Phineas and Ferb," which is, I might add, the BEST SHOW EVER. Um, according to my kids.

Anyway, the craze continues to grow, with characters such as Boston radio host Michael Graham using it to fill airtime, er, decry the nanny state. Me, I just want to keep Beaker at the top of the news cycle for as long as possible. To that end: