Best of one

This behavior is so interesting to me, and may not be interesting to anyone else:

It is Australia Day. I wanted to make it memorable, so I broke into my store of Sipahh straws (Straws that have flavor beads in them that turn milk into cookies and cream or mint chocolate flavor) and grabbed the little kangaroo stuffed animals I meant to send as gifts once upon a time.

When students make good choices in class (my favorite one is getting to work without me telling them to or following directions right away or improving behavior), they get a little piece of paper called an opportunity ticket. It represents the opportunities people get in life when they do good things. The tickets then go into a drawing.

So today, my raffle prizes were the flavored straws (good because it's just before lunch) and the kangaroo. Two boys, J and A, won the straws. The first one, J, called out which flavor he wanted ("I want cookies and cream!!") and the second one, A, then called out "I want mint chocolate!" The thing that is interesting to me is that A said he wanted the only flavor that was left.

What was the purpose of A claiming the mint chocolate Sipahh straw? J could dominate any physical contest and is verbally dominant. I suspect that A would not dare contest J's claim on the cookies and cream, even if he actually wanted it. But he still wanted to appear that he was getting what he wanted so that it didn't look like J was controlling him. Why else would he actively claim the only one of two options remaining?

Interesting?