i found my best defense was to pick the kids up and use them as shields; nonetheless, i pulled beans out of pockets and other, ahem, nether regions for the rest of the day. it's also tradition to eat a certain amount of beans corresponding to your age...you can see the kid on the left lifting up a bean for me to eat. after they had their fill of pelting me for about 25 minutes, the kids used their grubby little hands to pick beans up off the floor and feed them to me...