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Obama, Clinton, McCain: The secret of the last jelly beans

Posted March 5, 2008

by J. Christoph Amberger

Baltimore — (TFN): There is a jar full of jelly beans on the middle of my dining room table.

Correction, it used to be a full jar.

The label advertises forty-some assorted flavors, in all colors of the rainbow: Royal blue, speckled brown, canary yellow, bright ruby red… you name it, you can pick it.

Now the jar is empty. Picked over by myself (I like the pink grapefruit) and especially the hands of my children. I watched the long, spidery fingers of my 6-foot-three 14-year-old son expertly pick out one pear-flavored jelly bean after the other before switching to toasted marshmallow. The tiny hand of my daughter went for the berry flavors first, with the unstoppably precise selectiveness of a heat-seeking missile.

I remain uncertain what the broad fist of my 11-year old son removed from the mix with the efficiency of a scrap-yard magnet. (Although I am reminded of an ancient way Africans used to try to catch monkeys.)  But I have a lurking suspicion that those flavors he wasn't fond of made it back into the jar from his sweaty palm.

Wait until he discovers cyanide: He'll grow up to be a gold miner!

As I look at the jar, I can see that the only jelly beans that are left are the black ones.

They could be grape. They could even be root beer. Or they could be licorice.

The problem is: Nobody here likes licorice-flavored jelly beans. There may be undiscovered culinary delights in wait for me if I only could bring myself to try them. (They could be coffee-flavored for all I know!)

But my kids have sharp eyes. They can tell a grape flavored bean from a root beer flavored one. And they don't mind either. Which has increased the probability that whatever I pick, I'll end up with a mouthful of foul-tasting licorice.

I regard the forlorn hope of jelly beans with the same revulsion as I look at the remaining candidates for the presidential race. With all the fruits and nuts out of the race — even Huckabee and his Essence of FreeTax called it quits last night — the only candidates remaining are virtually indistinguishable.

Sure, one is less likely than the others to cut and run in Iraq. He may also not be actively sawing at the free-trade posts that form the foundations of the US economy. (Then again, he doesn't mind termites, either…)

But overall, all of them leave a bad taste in your mouth just looking at them. Just like a pawed-over jar full of jelly beans with only the licorice flavor left.

Then again… for all I know Ron Paul may still be running.

Hmmm, let me see… a activated medical charcoal-flavored jelly bean…

Nope! I'll just throw out the leftovers!

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Posted by J. Christoph Amberger · Filed Under Politics 

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