"Yeah, I can't wait to get there. I'm gonna hit the casino floor first thing. I love Vegas," Tony said to Trevor and I. I call him Tony because he really just walked up and started talking to us. No introduction or anything.

With that in mind I replied, "I don't really ever gamble, " I turned to Trevor and shrugged, "unless you count the llamas."

Tony got an odd looking smirk on his face and then said, "The llamas? Is that code for something?"

Trevor instantly picked up where I left off and said, "No no no, there are actually llamas involved. You see, we play the llamas."

"Oh, so it's like a llama race. Like playing the ponies, right? I bet that's hard to find a place to watch that."

I spoke up, "Well, it's not really all that simple. I mean, there's llamas involved and there's definitely betting, but racing is really out of the question. I mean, llamas really don't have the strength to carry a jockey for a race, at least not a good jockey. Trust me, we tried that first."

Trevor then said, "You see, we have this friend who is very well off. He got this idea in his head that he was going to start his very own llama farm. Now I don't know anything about llamas really, but I can't imagine them being worth anything that you would want to farm them for."

I interrupted, "Well, we never did really say that he was smart, just well off. Remember that time that he tried to collect all bodily fluids that came from him for a year just to see how much he actually expelled on average?"

Tony cringed, "That's gross, he actually did that?"

I answered, "Yeah, well it's good that he had a lot of money and a decent sized house because the buckets, beakers and jugs filled up two full rooms of his house. He was keeping piss, saliva, semen, feces, you name it. You probably gathered already, but we steered clear of that wing of the house."

Tony said, "So the guy's a wacko, and I am afraid to ask this but what do you do with the llamas?"

Trevor answered with, "Well it involves a good sense of estimation. Basically what you do is elect a 'dealer'."

Tony laughed, "Don't tell me that you get dealt a hand of llamas and that you somehow play cards with them."

Trevor said, "Don't jump to conclusions. Dealer is just the term that we use because he arranges the game and isn't allowed to bet. So the dealer herds up the llamas which is no easy task. There are over one hundred llamas so it takes at least a half hour. He then gathers up a random number of the beasts and lines them up in as straight a line as possible. Depending on how much of a pain you want to be to the other players this can take a good little while too."

"So he's lining up these llamas, like in a straight line or just a big mass, or what?"

I chimed in, "Well, to make the game really interesting you should really choose to configure them in as straight a line as possible. You can set them up however you want, as some of them can be a bit unco-operative. Basically once they get lined up the players then take a ten second look at the mass of animals and take a guess at the number of llamas that are lined up there."

Tony scoffed, "That doesn't sound too hard. I mean you know that it can't be over the number of llamas that he has in his...uhh...I guess you would call it a herd?"

"You would think that it would be easy, and the first couple of times it was. Then we added some complications to the game. You have to stand at least a hundred yards from the llamas to make your guess. Also, the dealer stays with the animals and can do anything within his capabilities to distract, deceive or otherwise screw over the players, " Trevor replied with a big grin on his face.

Tony paused for a second then said, "Well what would you really do to screw up the players?"

I answered, "Well, at first it was simple stupid stuff like, one guy tried to distract us by stripping down naked and running around in front of the llamas."

Trevor completed with, "Yeah, that didn't really work, though I think the llamas enjoyed it."

"Yeah, he didn't walk quite right for a good couple of weeks."

Trevor continued,"Now, some of the more devious people will pay some of their other friends to dress up as llama decoys to try and confuse the count. Some of the friends aren't too smart though and try to make donkey sounds. So sometimes it's easy to pick them out."

Tony started to back off and then said, "You guys are too fuckin weird man, I'm sticking with Vegas," then he turned all the way around and walked hurredly off.

Sometimes I still wonder to this day if Tony is off looking for strange llama cults. Did he lose big in Vegas and decide that betting on llamas would be a safer game for him to play, does he think that maybe there is some sort of huge llama cult that tries to make new activities based on the llama.