When I was little, my grandfather (who is a bigger kid than I am) got a big kick out of bringing my sister and me rock candy – you know, the candy that looks like pebbles.  It took us a couple of times to realize that we could actually eat the present.  Even so, I was never super comfortable with the idea.

This weekend, on a trip to the Gorge with friends, I ran across a gem and rock show at Cascade Locks.

Among the bins of polished rocks, strings of beads, and great chunks of amethyst, we found this:

Yup.  That’s one gumball machine filled with, you guessed it, gumballs, and one filled with rocks.  It seems the person who set up the machines sensed the inherent danger in this situation.  If you look closely at the label on the rock machine, you’ll see “do not eat.  is not candy.  it’s rocks.”

Yeah.  Good call.