Mexican Jumping Beans.

Have you ever seen these things? Quite possibly the best thing to come out of Mexico other than tacos.

After a trip to Mexico my dad brought me back some Mexican jumping beans. He thought they were hilarious and knew that I would get a kick out of them. He was right. They were little brown beans that you would put in your hand and watch them move about as if by magic. Strangely as a kid I never really questioned anyone as to why they moved the way they did, I was happier just to watch them do their thing. I even found a nice little case to put them in that was one of those ring cases you'd keep an engagement ring in before popping the big question.

Every day after school I'd run home and up to my room and pop open the top of the case to see the Mexican jumping beans bouncing around and it would bring me joy. Then one day the question I never asked was answered. I popped open the lid of the case to realize my jumping beans were no longer jumping. Instead each bean had a little hole in the side and laying on the bottom of the ring case was a few dried up little wormy looking things. There was little bugs in those beans, and the poor buggers were making the beans bounce by trying to get out. I don't think they would have been trying so hard if they knew what was going to happen to them once they did.

It's definitely a tough life being a mexican jumping bean. You spend your whole life trying to get out of the bean and before you realize you've accomplished what you've been trying to do for days on end, you're dead.