Please Don't Smash the Jelly Beans

A week after Easter weekend in 1983, my step-daughter, then three years old, was helping me dust the furniture in the living room. We came upon the partially empty candy dish that held the easter delights. What was left were only a few black jelly beans rolling around the bottom of the dish. I asked my step daughter if she wanted them and she promptly replied, " no". So I asked her if she thought maybe her brother would want them when he got home from school. Again, she replied, "no." I then asked her, "You want to just throw them away, then?" She replied,"No, I'll take them to my room for later" I agreed that was acceptable. She disappeared around the corner and down the hall to her bedroom. A few minutes later I could hear this banging coming from her room. I walked down the hall to investiagate, and what I saw stopped me dead in my tracks! "What are you doing? I asked her. "Getting rid of the black jelly beans," Came the reply. "oh, I said a little hesitant. How are you doing that?" "I'm smashin' em, She explained. "Smashin' em?" I asked and walked around to the other side of the bed where she stood. Yep, she was smashing them alright. There on the carpet lay three fully grounded black jelly beans. "i'm not sure that was a very good idea, I told her. "Why not?" she wanted to know. "Because, now I have to get all that sticky candy out of the carpet," I told her. I expalined that if she didn't want them we should just throw them away. Then I went to work getting gooey candy out of the carpet. I did ask her later why she did that and she said I told her that she could do anything she wanted with them. A lesson here, be careful what you tell your children, because they may just take it literal.