Dinogaysour and Ai Squalshyyy story

The wooden bench outside the leisure centre was holding on for dear life under Sgt. Salty’s back-end. He’d just finished an absolute blood-bath of a gym session—mostly heavy bench press, three minutes on the exercise bike to say he did cardio, and forty minutes looking out the window at the foot traffic.

He was sitting there in his rain-soaked trackies, holding a shaker bottle of chocolate whey that tasted like wet cement and broken promises, squinting down at his phone.

"I’m tellin’ ya, Govna," Salty said, wiping a lather of sweat off his eyebrow with his sleeve. "The talent in that gym today.

Absolute top-tier. Cracking pair of legs on half the broads, and the fellas are all built like brick shithouses. 

Look at McFinleyyy over there by the vending machine—man is absolutely ripped to the gills.

Sitting beside him, perched on the absolute edge of the timber so his trousers wouldn't touch Salty’s sweaty leg, was The Govna. Impeccably turned out as usual, holding an iPhone like it was a piece of fine china.

Just then, Ye Olde Large Lad came lumbering over, moving with the heavy, unhurried grace of a cement mixer coming down a hill. Right on his heels were Whizzley and Winks—Whizzley jittering like he’d swallowed a car battery, and Winks squinting suspiciously at the sky like he was expecting a bird to drop something on him.

Dannyboy came round the corner sideways right behind them, halfway through a massive chicken fillet roll—extra mayo, spicy chicken, two hash browns jammed inside for structural integrity.

"Story, lads?" Dannyboy mumbled, white bread flying everywhere. "Salty, you look like you were backed over by a Dublin Bus. Who won?"

"The chest press machine," Salty grunted.

" I’m just keeping an eye on the community, Dannyboy. Taking stock."

"Look at this fella here," Ye Olde Large Lad rumbled, gesturing with a massive thumb toward Squalshyyy, who was sitting on a low wall nearby looking mildly bewildered. "Squalshyyy’s had a big morning. He’s famous."

"Famous?" Salty blinked. "For what? Winning a pasty-eating contest?"

Whizzley whipped his phone out like a quick-draw cowboy. "No, look! I’m scrolling through the feed there and a sponsored ad pops up for some big private pension group. Look at the mug on it!"

He thrust the screen in front of Salty, Winks, and the Govna. Sure enough, an image popped up showing a distinguished, middle-aged man in a tweed jacket, sitting by a fireplace with a mug of tea, looking wisely into the distance. Except the face was unmistakably, perfectly, 100% Squalshyyy—just with slightly smoother skin and a hairline that had been generously restored.

"That's AI!" Winks squawked, pointing an accusing finger at Squalshyyy. "They’ve scraped his mug off the internet! They’re using Squalshyyy to sell annuity plans to sixty-year-olds in Blackrock!"

"I never signed nonhin'!" Squalshyyy protested, crossing his arms. "I don't even have a pension! I have eighty euro and a voucher for a car wash!"

"They don't need you to sign anything, Squalshyyy," the Govna remarked, eyeing the ad. "The algorithm clearly searched for 'local man who looks perpetually concerned about his retirement' and generated you from scratch."

"Anyway," Dannyboy interrupted, pulling out his own cracked phone. "That's not even the best thing on the feed today. Look at this."

He shoved a second screen two inches from Salty’s nose. Salty blinked, pulled his head back, and squinted through the condensation on his eyelids.

It was an image of a lush, tropical jungle. Standing dead in the middle of a mud pit was a colossal Tyrannosaurus Rex. But instead of standard muddy green, this creature was glowing in neon pink and gold, wearing oversized heart-shaped sunglasses, and holding its tiny two-inch arms out in a flamboyant ta-da! pose.

The caption underneath read: The Dinogaysour. Slaying the Cretaceous period.

Salty stared at it. He took a long, slow swig of his chalky whey. His heavy brow furrowed until it looked like a corrugated tin roof.

"What in the name of God’s green earth is that?" Salty asked, his voice dropping an octave into pure, unadulterated Irish confusion.

"It’s a gay dinosaur, Salty," Whizzley cackled, bouncing on his heels. "A Dinogaysour! Get it?"

"A Dinogaysour," Salty repeated, rolling the word around his mouth like a bad mouthful of Guinness. He looked at Dannyboy, then at the Govna, then back at the phone. "Hold on now. Hold the bus. 

Logistically... wouldn't they just die out?"

The Govna pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, suffering sigh. "Salty, it is a meme on the internet. It does not require a consultation with the Department of Agriculture."

"No, but think about the biology of it!" Salty shouted, the bench creaking as he shifted his bulk. "I’m looking at this from an operational standpoint! You’ve got your Stegosaurus, you’ve got your Triceratops. They have a few pints, they do a bit of courtin' down by the watering hole, they lay an egg—boom, next generation of tail-wackers ready to go. But if you’re a Dinogaysour... where’s the continuity? Where are the recruits coming from? You'd be extinct in two weeks!"

"Maybe they adopted," Ye Olde Large Lad grunted, taking a massive bite out of an apple. "Couple of male Velociraptors find an abandoned egg in the ferns. Raise it up dead sound. Teach it how to hunt, keep the cave clean." Ehhh, Gayyyyyy

"Or," Sarah’s sharp voice piped up as she rounded the hedge carrying a tray of paper coffee cups, "it's a joke on the internet, Salty, and you have the brain capacity of a turnip."

She handed a coffee to Susan, who was marching right behind her carrying a clipboard, a pen behind her ear, and an expression that suggested someone was about to get audited.

"What's the hold-up?" Susan asked, checking her watch. "We’re ten minutes behind schedule, Dannyboy’s shirt is covered in mayonnaise, Squalshyyy’s face is being monetized by a financial institution, and Salty looks like he’s having a minor stroke."

"Salty is currently unraveling six million years of evolutionary theory because he saw a rainbow T-Rex on Facebook," the Govna explained dryly.

"It’s a valid strategic query!" Salty roared. "Susan, you do the books! Tell him! If a population doesn't reproduce, the unit collapses!"

Susan didn't even pause. She took a sip of her Americano, flipped a page on her clipboard, and looked at Salty over the top of her glasses.

"Actually, Salty, from an organizational and resource-allocation perspective, a non-breeding demographic in a herd dynamic is a massive operational asset."

Salty went silent. Whizzley stopped bouncing. 

Even Winks tilted his head.

"Go on," Salty said, suddenly deeply attentive.

"In a high-threat environment—say, dodging Pterodactyls and active volcanoes—raising young takes ninety percent of a herd's energy," Susan said, tapping her pen against the metal board. "If you have a sub-unit of mature, powerful adults who aren't bogged down with nest-duty or fighting each other over females, they become your prime frontline defense. 

They guard the perimeter, forage for high-yield vegetation, and keep the young safe while the primary breeders recover. It’s basic communal logistics."

Dannyboy’s eyes lit up. "They’re the cool uncles! The Cretaceous bouncers!"

"Exactly," Sarah laughed. "While the big, aggressive alpha males are out locking horns and throwing their backs out over a patch of grass, the Dinogaysour is back at base camp organizing the shelter, making sure nobody eats the poisonous berries, and keeping the vibes immaculate."

Salty sat there, stroking his jaw, staring into the distance as if visualizing a brigade of fabulous raptors holding off a pack of hyenas.

"D'ye know what..." Salty said slowly, a grin creeping onto his face. "That is sound logic. That is pure tactical support. I can respect a dedicated support unit."

"There ya go," McFinleyyy said, flexing a bicep as he finally walked over from the vending machine with a water bottle. "They weren't dying out, Salty. They were keeping the herd shredded and tactical."

"Still," Salty added, pointing a thick finger at the phone, "the name's a bit soft. 'Dinogaysour'? Lacks military bite. If we’re classing them as an elite perimeter unit, they need a proper moniker."

"Like what?" Sarah asked, smirking. "The Velvet Raptor?"

"No, no," Salty said dead seriously. "Tyrannosaurus Flex. Or maybe Veloci-Fab-tor."

The Govna covered his face with both hands. "I am going to throw myself into the Royal Canal."

"I like Veloci-Fab-tor!" Winks piped up. "Sounds like a lad who’d give you a grand haircut and then help you shift a couch up three flights of stairs."

"Right, that's enough," Susan announced, snapping her binder shut with a crack like a pistol shot. "Break’s over. Salty, go put a jumper on, you’re steaming. Squalshyyy, call a solicitor about your face. Dannyboy, throw that roll wrapper in the green bin or so help me God I'll write you up for littering in front of the Tidy Towns committee."

"Alright, alright, don't lose your head," Salty muttered, pushing himself up off the bench with a heavy grunt. "I’m just saying, prehistory was clearly a lot more organized than people give it credit for."

"Come on, big man," Sarah chuckled, giving him a shove towards the car park. "Let's get you a cup of tea before you start analyzing the sexual orientation of the mammoths."

"Mammoths are a different operational kettle of fish altogether, Sarah," Salty said, marching ahead with his chest puffed out, looking like a man who had personally solved the secrets of the Mesozoic era over a tub of chocolate whey. "Different climate, different logistics!"