Bubble Gum Fun

My wife is helping out with the fall carnival at her school, and they all had to come up with some fun little games. She decided to do the old "Guess-How-Much-Candy-Is-In-The-Jar-And-You-Win-It-All" game, using Peanut M&Ms and Dubble Bubble gumballs. The jar said how many gumballs were inside, but you KNOW that the winner of the contest will invariably take the gumballs out and count them as soon as they win. (Kids are nutty.) So we had to count them. The M&Ms had to be counted anyway, as their packaging was a little more cryptic. Their contents were measured by weight (54 oz.), not quantity. I took the gumballs, and my wife took the M&Ms.

I poured the jar into a strainer, got out a plastic fork and started lifting them back into the jar. It probably wasn't the best idea as the gumballs kept rolling off the fork, but I wanted to be sanitary about the whole affair. Coincidentally, about halfway through this arduous chore, I looked over at my wife who was cooly and calmly counting her Peanut M&Ms WITH A SPOON. Dang. Why didn't I think of that?

I was curious to see how close the gumball count would be to the number printed on the label ("about 679"). When it was all said and done, the final count tallied 690 - 686 normal gumballs and 4 freaky ones (see image). That's an 11-gumball bonus!

Oh, and by the way, in case you ever need to convert English weights and measures to something more practical, 54 dry ounces equals 626 Peanut M&Ms. (That's approximately 11.5 per ounce.) Don't believe me? Count 'em yourself!