Things Went Terribly Wrong at PEZ's Easter Egg Hunt This Weekend

Easter egg hunts start out as innocent-enough affairs. For the youngest egg hunters, finding barely concealed pastel plastic eggs is an honest-to-God challenge, and the candy reward is indeed worthy treasure.

But later in life, when surly teenagers are called outside in the cruel morning light for the family Easter hunt, and maybe Grandma sneaks a couple dollar bills into those eggs, the competition heats up.

Overly competitive teenagers who crowd the bushes to grab up all the candy are one thing. For real full-contact holiday sports, leave it to the adults, who rushed a Connecticut Easter egg hunt hosted by PEZ this weekend, stripping the field "like locusts" and leaving behind only a candy-barren field, crying children, and broken dreams.

Roughly 1,000 parents and their children gathered at the PEZ headquarters in Orange, Connecticut, for a free Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning, where PEZ staff had laid out 10,000 eggs across three fields, broken up by age groups. But before PEZ could get the egg hunt going in an orderly fashion, some parents rushed the field with their children, grabbing up candy with fearsome ferocity.

"It was ridiculous. The parents were literally a poster for everything not to do," Nicole Welch told NBC Connecticut. "By the time I found my 4-year-old, he was hysterically crying."

Her 4-year-old, Vincent, recalled the mayhem, saying, "Somebody pushed me over and take my eggs and it's very rude of them and they broke my bucket."

Distraught PEZ staff attempted to fix the situation, giving out candy and coupons for free stuff in the aftermath, but it was, for many, too late.

"My grandson ended up with a bloody [nose] from an ADULT in the 9-12 year old section knocking into him!!!! Where was PEZ personnel?? Where was the safety of our children in your thought process??" one distressed grandparent wrote on Facebook.

The fields had been designated as kids-only areas, and start times posted on signs were trampled or taken. This was PEZ's third year hosting the event, and PEZ followed the same procedures as years past, with one PEZ employee per field. More people showed up this year than expected.

"I take this personally. I don't want this to be a reflection of the brand," said Shawn Peterson, the manager of the PEZ Visitor Center. "It was a fun thing up until this point."

"Unfortunately people chose to enter the first field prior to anyone from PEZ staff starting the activity. The crowd moved to the second field, waited for only a couple of minutes and proceeded to rush the field without being directed to do so and before the posted start time," PEZ said in a statement. "We sincerely tried our best to create a fun, free activity for everyone to enjoy."

Others defended the company, saying that PEZ couldn't anticipate that parents would act like "barbarian marauders." But perhaps the PEZ incident is a sad reflection of the times, another example of how nice things are inevitably lost to modern moral decay.

It is unclear if PEZ will return with another egg hunt next year. If they do, children, a year wiser and a few inches taller, may arrive at the fields with a look of grim determination in their eyes. PEZ better be ready.