My father was a man of few words, a cowboy in the truest sense of the word. This could often lead to some wacky situations, especially given his love of camping in places where things could go wrong any instant.

 

(Watching a Gila monster)

Son: Watch that Gila, Dad. It might bite.

Dad: That it might.

Son: Oh, great. It went back into its hole. Coast is clear now.

 

(In the Gila monster’s hole)

Son: Boy, dad, you sure are good at compressing your body to fit inside a small hole. I mean, I’m a kid, it wasn’t too hard for me, but you slipped right in as though you don’t have a single bone in your body.

Dad: Glad my tentacles didn’t get scratched.

Son: Tentacles? But you’re just a normal dad!

Dad: Don’t think too much on it, son. Deeper we go.

 

(Deeper in the hole)

Son: Why’d you want to come in here anyway? That Gila monster could be right around the corner!

Dad: Son, I have something to tell you. I’m actually a giant land-dwelling octopus pretending to be a normal dad.

Son: This just seems like an unimaginative play on the plot of 2010 indie game ‘Octodad’, where an octopus needs to pretend to be a normal dad.

Dad: That it does.

 

(Several minutes later)

Son: Even though you’re an octopus, you still love me, right dad?

Dad: Some say mollusks are capable of all the same emotions humans are, but those people are wrong. I only feel a primal urge to protect you as though you were one of my egg sacs. Once you reach maturity, I will try to eat you.

Gila Monster: (Leaps out of the shadows, bites son)

Son: (Dies a slow and agonizing death)

Dad: This doesn’t mean much to me.

Son: Because you’re an octopus?

Dad: No, because I’m a cowboy. To me, it’s just another reminder of the harsh nature of life on the Western frontier.