The Las Vegas Ice Cream Eating Contest The Scooper Duper Creamery was a small ice cream shop on the Vegas Strip. They would hold ice cream eating contests on the weekends that, being in Vegas, would be bet on by the tourists. Anyone could sign up to participate in the challenge if they were daring enough. To win, one would have to eat an entire gallon in thirty minutes. If no one was successful at the end, the person who ate the most would be declared the winner instead. One weekend, a gentleman decided to come by the Creamery to see about placing a bet after eyeing the evening's contestants. Tonight there were only three of them. The first was a young man in his twenties; built like football player and had been known for competing in other local food challenges. The second contestant, a woman around the same age, was just in town for a bachelorette party and only signed up out of peer pressure from her girlfriends. The last contestant was a student, here on summer vacation with his family, after completing the sixth grade. After scoping everyone out, the gentlemen placed his wager along with the other spectators and and local gamblers. With the sound of a horn, the challenge began and the contestants were off! Spoonful after spoonful, they gorged themselves. Soon, though, they started to weaken. A stomachache and brain-freeze quickly forced the bachelorette to drop out first. It was down to the footballer and the elementary school graduate. It was a fierce back-and-forth race. For a moment, anyway. For that was all the former sixth-grader needed. With a single gulp, he finished off the gallon in record time. The spectators were silenced. The odds were against him; no one thought he could do it. *No one* except the gentleman, that is. When he went to collect his winnings, the others all asked him how he knew the kid would win. They wanted to know his secret formula. They hounded him and begged. Finally, after he had finished counting his winnings, he revealed to them... *""I did not have a formula and there wasno secret strategy. The reason I put all my money on the boy is simple: it was a sherbet.""*