So, even though I’ve already done a very professional table of contents (which many, many other students probably forgot to add to their projects), here’s a quick summary of what to expect. In this science project, I will:
1) define the terms “jerk” and “idiot,” so we know what we’re working with;
2) describe a highly scientific scale I have developed, which plots human behavior on a scale from “idiot” to “complete jerk”;
3) research human idiocy and jerkosity, exploring key scientific areas such as:
(a) Jerks and age
(b) Jerkishness as a family trait
(c) Jerks in sports
(d) Jerks in emergency situations
(e) Jerks at school (a familiar subject)
(f) Miscellaneous jerks
(g) Jerks and behavior change
(h) Animals as jerks;
4) develop You Be the Jerk! a fun, quiz-like section where you get to put yourself in a jerk’s shoes and ask yourself, “If I were a jerk here, what would I do?” (there’s no grading, so no pressure);
5) come up with some concluding, very conclusive conclusions.
B) The Sciencey Way
This project will follow the scientific method, which, as far as I can tell, is just sort of looking at things in a sciencey way. So let’s just call it “looking at things in a sciencey way.” So, say you want to figure something out. Like, for example, whether toddlers can be jerks (see Chapter 4).
This is your problem. You kind of think about it for a while and decide, “Nah, little kids can’t be jerks! They’re cute, mostly, and they have puny little brains. No way can they be jerks.” This is your hypothesis, a guess you make in a sciencey way. Then you test this idea with an experiment, using various materials (say, two toddlers and a big plastic car). You check out what happens (your observations) and figure out if you’re right or not by making conclusions (which sum up what you learned and sound important and final).
For added scientific value (and, hopefully, added marks), I will use graphs, tables and charts wherever I can to illustrate my data (things I learned from my experiments) once I figure out how to format them on our family’s ancient, lame computer. These illustrations will appear only in black and white because, even in the interests of groundbreaking scientific research, my dad won’t spend the extra money on a color cartridge for the printer. (Apparently, black and white was good enough for him when he went to school in the 1980s and had a computer the size of a dishwasher.)
Depending on the topic, some illustrations may even have to be hand-drawn, but they will still be highly scientific. Many, many scientists from the past had no computer and scribbled out their stuff by hand, and I’m very sure their teachers never lowered their grades because of it.
C) Lame Definitions
But what, you may ask, is a jerk? What is an idiot?
What do we mean by these words? Jerks and idiots don’t look any different from normal people, so it can be tricky. Well, let’s head to the experts. The Oxford Dictionary of English, a very big, very heavy book, defines both words:
→jerk noun, informal: a contemptibly foolish person (you have to get past the “sudden movement” and the “raising of a barbell above the head” definitions to get to the one we want)
→idiot noun, informal: a stupid person (it also gets into the old definitions about people of low intelligence, which is just plain hurtful and is not the way anybody uses the word these days)
Now, I’m sure some very smart people wrote those definitions. You pretty much have to be smart to write dictionaries. You also have to factor in that those dictionary writers had to write a whole bunch of definitions as well, because the book is about nine thousand pages long and heavy.
But really? How lame can those definitions be? Even if we assume that they have to keep them short and snappy, a jerk as a “contemptibly foolish person”? An idiot as merely “a stupid person”? I think we can do better.
Recognizing jerks and idiots is instinctive. It’s all about the way people act. When we say somebody is an idiot, we don’t really mean they aren’t intelligent. Many of the total idiots I know do very well in school.
But they also do stupid and annoying things. Like, for example, the kid that repeats everything you say (he repeats everything you say!), so you tell him to shut up (Shut up! he mimics), so you say “Okay, now just stop it!” (Okay, now just stop it! ). And it goes on and on until you’re running away and he’s running after you until you find a door between you and him that you can slam and lock.
But interestingly, while idiotic behavior can be, and usually is, highly annoying, it is rarely deliberately mean. That’s jerk territory. So when we mutter “jerk” under our breath, we generally aren’t thinking “You are a foolish person; therefore, I have contempt for you,” like the dictionary thinks we are. What we mean when we think somebody is a jerk is that the person is doing something stupid or really annoying in a deliberately stupid, annoying and mean way. Jerks act like jerks. It may have started as an idiotic or jerkish idea in their brains, but it’s when they start doing something jerkish that most of us notice.
The following diagram illustrates how this works.
Scientific Illustration #1:
The Phases of a Jerk’s Behavior
A lot of the time, we don’t really study jerkish behavior—we just recognize it at a gut level, then ignore, avoid or challenge it. So, here’s an example. A few days ago, I answered a question in class and sort of stumbled over the answer. It was just a little thing. Instead of saying “double-you” for the letter W, I said “dwubble-you.” It was just a slip. Too early in the day. Whatever. Now (a) I knew I said it wrong (I’ve actually known how to pronounce that letter since I was about three years old), and my face went red and hot, and I corrected myself immediately, and (b) everyone else in class knew I said it wrong, and most of them said nothing. Most normal people just sort of think in their heads, “Oops, slipped up there.” And then they let it go, because it’s embarrassing, but everyone makes mistakes. That’s what most normal people would do. Now, a jerk would make a huge big deal about it.
“Dwubbleyou?? DWUBBLEYOU?? You said DWUBBLEYOU!!! Ha, ha…”
This is an actual quote by a certain known jerk in my class. She could not let it go and even brought it up again at lunch. I ignored her. It was the dignified option. What can you even do about a jerk like that?
D) A Jerk by Any Other Name: A Note on Language
Often when people describe jerks, they don’t say what they really mean. They use euphemisms, which are nicer, kinder words that sound better but essentially mean the same as jerk. Adults often do this; kids, not so much. Why this hesitation in calling a jerk a jerk? There appear to be four main reasons: being polite, being kind, being professional and being clueless.
1) Being polite
Lots of non-jerks do not publicly use the word “jerk” to describe other people. It seems impolite and somehow even illiterate, as though you couldn’t think of a better word and just settled on darkly muttering, “What a jerk!” But if an adult describes someone as “a real character,” “hypercompetitive,”“high-maintenance,” “an overachiever,” “not pulling their punches,” “very intense,” “inflexible,” “blunt” or “stressed out,” they just might be delicately dancing around the word “jerk.”
2) Being kind
Kind people often shy away from name-calling. That reluctance to hurt another person’s feelings is part of the reason they aren’t jerks themselves. I would argue that calling a jerk a jerk is more a matter of classification, but that may just be my inner scientist talking. My mom is a frustratingly kind person. Example: A new kid in my class behaves like a jerk. She’s rude and disruptive and just kind of mean. But when I tell my mom, she says things like “It’s hard to be the new kid,” “It’s early days,” “It’s a period of adjustment” and “Give her time.” And that all might be true. But the kid might still be a jerk.
3) Being professional
Rarely, if ever, will a teacher write “This kid is a complete jerk” on a report card. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt it’s ever been done, even when the teacher was very, very tempted. First, it wouldn’t be terribly professional. Second, report cards are read by parents, who might be kind of touchy about their child being called names by their teacher. So teachers hide behind more official-sounding teacher words when they write report cards, saying the child “does not play well with others,” “is consistently disruptive in class,” “makes poor choices” or “needs to work on sharing.” Teachers may, when talking to parents, use words like “high-energy,” “challenging,” “difficult,” “demanding” and “uncooperative,” or even go so far as to say the child is “a real handful” (you have to imagine the small, weary smile and the shake of the head. And the nodding of the parents). Anyway, all of these are obviously possible code words for “jerk.”
4) Being clueless
Some parents must secretly know that their kids are jerks. This must be hard, because jerks are generally disliked. People pretty much want to get away from jerks. But when you’ve given birth to a jerk, you’re stuck with them. This difficult situation explains why some parents tend to look around for reasons (however ridiculous or inapplicable) to explain away the jerkish behavior of their children. Some kids do have real medical or psychological problems and issues, obviously. But some don’t. They’re just jerks. And some parents just can’t accept that their kid is a jerk. But when parents start saying that “people just don’t understand” their kid, that he “needs a more supportive environment,” has “got in with a bad crowd,” is “going through a phase,” is “deep, deep down a good person” or that he’s “having some issues,” they may just be looking for happier words than “jerk.” And can you really blame them? They have to live with the jerk.
On a positive note, my research on my uncle Dave indicates that jerks are not locked into jerkitude for their whole lives. They can change. (See Chapter 11.)
E) A Truly Scientific Analysis
Waffly language, gut feelings, unclear definitions—the problem of jerks clearly calls out for organized, scientific study. In an attempt to make it more sciencey, I have developed a simple yet highly sophisticated tool: a scale of how people act. The next scientific illustration, Scientific Illustration #2, is an important one—so important that it’s the title of the whole project. Come to think of it, it probably should have been Scientific Illustration #1, but it didn’t work out that way. So much for my organization.
Scientific Illustration #2
On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk:
The Jerk-O-Meter
As you can see, the scale rates a spectrum of human behavior, where 1 is normal, 3 tends into idiot territory, and past 6 you’re all jerk. A complete jerk, the highest level of jerk, will get a perfect score of 10 on the Jerk-O-Meter. (I plan, at some point in the future, to develop a handheld version of the Jerk-O-Meter, similar in concept to a compass or a speedometer, that you can point at a person and observe where the red needle stops on the scale. This invaluable tool for social interaction is still, however, in the development phase.)
The scale might appear quite simple. But then again, a lot of highly important sciencey stuff starts out very simply. Like when a guy wonders why an apple falls from a tree and then comes up with the theory of gravity. Gravity. But though simple, my scale provides a much more precise and scientific way of measuring and comparing jerkish or idiotic behavior. Let’s give it a little demo.
The guy in the car behind us who honked at my mom a millisecond after the light turned green this morning exhibited low-grade idiot behavior. Maybe a 3 on the scale. Normal people wait that little heartbeat before honking at the person in front of them. But, no, this guy gets all huffy and impatient the second the light turns. Lower-scale idiots like this are mildly annoying or irritating, but not harmful. My mom glanced in the rearview mirror, muttered “okay, okay” under her breath and then forgot about it.
If Mr. Honk had laid on the horn for longer and swerved around us, he would have jumped up the scale into the idiot-tending-to-total-idiot range (4-6 on the scale). If he’d shouted at us as he burned past us, he would have continued his climb up the scale into jerk territory (maybe a 7-8). If he’d sworn at us, cut someone else off, laid on the horn again or thrown garbage out his window, he’d probably qualify for complete jerk status, a 10 on the scale. Anything more and he’d be off the scale, heading into the darker higher numbers where the police usually become involved.
Now that we have the Jerk-O-Meter as a measuring tool, it’s time to jump into the research.
CHAPTER 4
Can Young Children Be Jerks?
Let’s be honest here—no baby is a jerk. They just can’t be. Can you imagine yourself seeing a baby fussing or crying or spitting up on his mom’s shoulder and saying “That kid’s a real jerk!”? It’s impossible. They’re just little and hungry or wet and don’t tend to sleep on the same schedule as the rest of us. But they don’t mean to be annoying—I doubt if they even realize they are. So pretty much anyone who calls a baby a jerk is a jerk.
How about a toddler? They do some pretty scary stuff. They throw food. They’re grabby and crabby. They have tantrums. They scream a lot. They seem to have a lot of rage. I wasn’t sure if they could be jerks or not, so in the interests of science I did some research on this particular topic.
CASE STUDY #1
The Cranky Toddlers and the Big Plastic Car
Subjects: Maddie (age two, my cousin) and Nathan (age two, neighbor)
Laboratory: My auntie Anne’s extremely messy family room
Experiment: My auntie Anne has one child (Maddie, a toddler) and about four thousand toys. But of all those toys, the big red plastic sit-in car is one of those premium-gold toys. What kid wouldn’t want to open a big red plastic door, sit her little diaper down, slam the door and busily steer the wheel, turn the big plastic key and beep the yellow horn? None, I’m guessing. But what happens when there are two kids and one car? I observed a playdate with Maddie and her “friend” and neighbor, Nathan.
Observations: Both kids get released into the room at the same time, like a turtle race. Maddie, even though she’s technically hosting this playdate, staggers across the room faster than Nathan and grabs the car. She screams “MINE!” and sort of topples through the window and eventually ends up sitting inside, grinning. Nathan sees at a glance that the car is the money toy. He starts to howl in sheer rage. He sits right down on the floor and screams until his face gets really red. Tears, snot and saliva all stream down his face. Auntie Anne rushes over and tries to reason with him. It is not even remotely successful. So she flies over to the car, gives Maddie a few quick pushes, pleads and bargains with her and eventually just wrestles her out of it so that Nathan can have a turn. Nathan stumbles over with a drooly smile and dives in, shrieking “MINE!” Maddie, predictably, goes ballistic.
To sum up, there’s an undignified tussle, they have a sort of shared, collective, monster tantrum, Auntie Anne shoves the car into the garage, and things only calm down when she brings out applesauce and Goldfish crackers. And, thankfully, a wet cloth for wiping faces.
“What, you’re going already?” asks Auntie Anne, noticing me putting on my shoes. “What about the research?”
“I got everything I need. Bye Auntie Anne, bye Maddie, bye Nathan!” I get gooey, applesaucy waves and “bye-byes” that spew cracker crumbs across the floor.
It’s only been seven and a half minutes by my watch, but I think I have enough research. And a screaming headache.
Conclusions: Toddlers can’t be jerks. They’re just too young. They haven’t learned not to be selfish and out of control. And they want to ride around in great little red cars. Can you blame them? Now, if Maddie and Nathan had been teenagers or adults, their behavior with the plastic car would definitely qualify them for full number-10, complete-jerk status. But they’re tw
o years old. And it’s a fun car.
There appears to be an age limit for jerks, and children have to be more than two years old to properly be considered jerks.
CASE STUDY #2
Mayhem in the Mudroom
But what about kids who are older than toddlers but younger than kids in junior high (who we all know can be jerks)? Can they be jerks? In this case study, I try to pinpoint the age when jerkitude begins.
Subjects: The grade-one class at Dorothy Simpkins Elementary School
Laboratory: The mudroom
Experiment: My brother, Joe, is in grade three at this school. Every day I meet him after school and we walk home together. But in this case study, I bribed him with a cookie, told him he was my research assistant and dragged him over to observe the grade ones being dismissed for the day. What do they do? How do they behave? Can a six-year-old really be a jerk?
Observations: The bell rings. The grade ones all swarm into the mudroom, where they have to change their inside shoes for their outside shoes. It’s a total scrum, and Joe and I get flattened against the wall by the human wave of six-year-olds. I can’t believe how much noise these kids make. I’m regretting once again that I didn’t do a quieter experiment.
Anyway, a little boy rips into the room and shoves his feet into his outdoor shoes (the kind that light up with each step you take). He heads for the door, two-hand shoving other little kids (who are bent over, putting on their shoes) out of the way and swinging his backpack. And he’s also yelling “yayayayayayaaaaaa!” I don’t know if that’s scientifically relevant, but that’s what he does.
On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk Page 2
