Ed

Feb 01, 2026

Ed is a dick.

His belly is rotund. It’s firm, ample, and shameful (though it’s obvious he never feels shame). In a famine, he’d be the last man standing because his fat reserve runs so deep. Despite this, he charges every meal that’s served—he thinks he’s Oliver Twist but he’s more like South Park’s Cartman.

I’ve never heard him say “please” or “thank you.” The only word I’ve heard him say—if you can call it a word—is this bellowing whine that sounds like “more, more, more!”

He possesses no grace or decorum. Every time he enters a room, he rushes in as if he’s been snorting rails of blow, and his eyes have this vacant, devil-may-give-a-shit quality, and I swear I can hear him humming Rage Against the Machine: “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me! Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”

He’s also a bully. I’ll just be sitting at my desk, writing or reading or even daydreaming, and this son of a bitch will haul off and slap me. And if I slap him back, he’ll resort to scratching or biting, as if we’re in the yard at San Quentin.

And I don’t even get it the worst. Ed really goes after Mr. Thunder Jones, our poor, put-upon ten-year-old pussycat. Thunder will be taking a nap near a window, getting his vitamin D, doing nothing to nobody, asking nothing from the world but a little peace and quiet, and Ed will run over and smack Thunder right upside the head.

This is Thunder’s I-just-got-slapped-upside-the-head-by-a-baby-dick face.

Like I said, Ed’s a dick. And, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, I hear you—the same way I hear my wife who has been all too quick to point out that Ed is a kitten. “He’s just a baby,” my wife says.

Yeah, he’s a baby dick.

To be fair, my character analysis of Ed (whose full name is Reverend Eddie Pussington) is colored by an experience I had with him a couple weeks ago. As is so often the case when things go sideways in my life, my wife was out of town (for evidence of this claim, I refer you to Exhibit A). She was in Salt Lake with my daughter at a volleyball tournament, and I stayed back with my son, our dogs, our cats, our chickens, and Reverend Ed—the baby dick.

Ed had been staying in my daughter’s room. He’s her kitten, and the quarantine was essential since Ed seems to have triggered the prey drive of our basset hound, Captain Banjo Butterbuns. Miss Millie Butterbuns, our 150-pound Newfoundland, and our cats—Mr. Thunder Jones and Sister Lightning Jenkins—are annoyed by Ed, but they don’t seem to want to commit any capital crimes against him (though he has certainly shaken that tree). Banjo, however, seems eager to read Reverend Ed his last rites. Which is hilarious because Banjo has the athletic talent and violent capabilities of an octogenarian water aerobics instructor. Anyhow, Ed had to be moved to my son’s room while my wife and daughter whooped it up in Utah.

That night I went to sleep with Banjo and Thunder at the foot of the bed, Millie on the floor, and Lightning sprawled across the windowsill. I never sleep all that great when my wife is out of town—twenty-plus years of marriage cuts some deep grooves—and I slept even worse that night because I kept hearing bells. And not the sweet, charming sound of bells you might be imagining. The bells I heard were the Edgar Allan Poe variety: “…the moaning and the groaning of the bells.”

Not the face you want to imagine when you’re woken in the dead of night.

I stirred awake and tried to remember if Lightning had a bell on her collar—she’s the only one who stalks the house at night. Nope, wasn’t her. Lightning was still on the windowsill. I sat up, and Banjo was wide awake, too, looking right at me. He’s a dog, so he can’t talk, but the look on his face said this:

“You hearin’ this shit, Norm? Because I hear it. It’s time to defend the castle, mother fucker! Are you with me?!”

Get More Funny!

And with that, Banjo drooped off the bed (he’s not made for leaping or jumping) and galumphed up the stairs (he’s not made for running or really anything that requires speed or agility).

Once up the stairs, he started barking. Banjo’s bark is the only violent thing about him. He’s purebred Basset Hound, and when he really throws his dome back and bawls, you can feel it in your femurs, hips, and backbone. And when it’s three o’clock in the morning, those tidal waves of sound hit even harder.

The barking was what woke me up and made me realize that the dick, Reverend Ed, had escaped my son’s room to take an after-hours tour of the living room. Banjo had chased Ed under one of our recliners, and all I could hear was a cataclysm of death barking and SOS meows that sounded like “more, more, more!”

Dig it!

I got a hand around Banjo’s collar, which stopped him from barking. I was about to take him to his crate so that I could deal with Ed, but the sudden quiet seemed to convince Ed that this was his opportunity to make a play.

He darted out from the recliner and ran up my leg. I was hunched over because I had a fistful of Banjo’s leather dog collar, but Ed’s scurrying up my leg startled me—I let loose of Banjo and wrenched my back so that I was standing straight up. I must have looked like a switchblade snapping open.

Speaking of switchblades, once I was standing at full attention, Ed had free-solo climbed up and was now clinging to my boxer shorts, which is all that I was wearing, so there wasn’t much protection from Ed’s razor-wire claws. I tried to grab him, but Banjo started barking again.

Ed heard this, but he may as well have heard a starting pistol. Up he went, this little kitten-shaped cutlery set clambering up my torso, my chest—the baby dick managed to wedge one claw in my left nipple—my shoulders, all the way to the crown of my goddamn head. Imagine if someone turned a wireless blender on puree and then put it on your head like a hat. Thankfully, I’ve been letting my hair grow a little longer. If I hadn’t, I may have needed to have a series of skin grafts.

I spent the next minute or two trying to get him off my head. All the while, Banjo is barking, Ed is screaming, and the little silver bells are dinging. If you die and end up in hell, I’m guessing this is the soundtrack the demons play while you assemble Ikea furniture for eternity.

When I finally dislodged the furry little psychopath from my head, I noticed his eyes. He was still in the throes of Banjo-induced terror. I could have driven a Mack Truck through his dilated pupils. Yes, he was still a baby dick but a little more relatable. Nothing like a trauma bond to forge a new relationship.

I held him by the scruff, got Banjo in his crate, and returned Ed to my daughter’s room. I couldn’t risk another twilight escape story. I gave him a few pets, got his motor running, and placed him in his little cat bed. By the time I closed the door, he was already screaming: “More! More! More!” What a dick.

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