In hindsight, mine didn’t age very well… in 2015 my best freind and I were on opposite ends of an MMA bet. I was convinced Connor McGregor had the power to beat José Aldo and avoid the grappling. At the time, I thought McGregor was the best striker and best talker the UFC had seen (he objectively was at the time). He won, my buddy was inconsolable and I put 300 bucks in my pocket. For YEARS it was a fat feather in my cap.
Edit for clarification, it was a 100 dollar bet he gave me 3 to 1 odds on because McGregor really should have lost based on everything. So phenomenal win and the fact it was over in seconds was peak excitement. It aged poorly because McGregor turned out to be a rapist.
When I was in about 8th grade, I had a history teacher bet me a case of pop that he could prove 1+1 did not equal 2. I said okay, and he told me to come in tomorrow and he’d have the proof on the board.
He was also our football coach and taught several grades. I went to a small k12 in the country. He was generally liked by the students but didn’t much like smart kids so he was a real smug prick about it.
That evening I mentioned it to my dad. He smirked and told me he knew exactly what was about to happen. Bear in mind this was pre broadband and I wasn’t going to crawl gopher at 9600 to find it, so it was good my dad is a nerdy engineer.
Next day; knowing he’d have a divide by zero issue somewhere in a sea of math salad, I walked into his class. It wasn’t my class but the first of the day. Kids a few years older, looking at me askance and laughing as he smugly said nothing but pointed me to the board, where there was predictably a math salad, tons of variables and algebra.
I think he expected me to crunch for a while… really chew on it, so he went right back to lecture. About 10 seconds later, I saw it, and just turned and looked at him, waiting patiently. He didn’t see me, but the class changed. A small din rose and the older kids started smirking and whispering.
He had such a shitty look when he turned to me, “I’ll take Diet,” he said.
“Really?” … “You can’t divide by zero.”
“I didn’t.”
“Right here, coach. x-y here is zero in the denominator. Better luck next time. I’ll take Cherry Coke.“ And I walked out, like a movie arsonist walking away from the fire. In my head, I was screaming. My heart beat like I’d run up a mountain.
Only silence was left in my wake that day. I was, for one day, the coolest bloke in town. I didn’t get the girl or anything, but there was Cherry Coke for the class the next day when I arrived.